THE  MAN   BEHIND  THE  BARS 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 


BY 

WINIFRED  LOUISE  TAYLOR 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1914 


COPYRIGHT,  1914,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  October,  1914 


TO 
MY   PRISON    FRIENDS 


PREFACE 

LEST  any  one  may  charge  me  with  extravagant 
optimism  in  regard  to  convicts,  or  may  think 
that  to  me  every  goose  is  a  swan,  I  wish  to  say 
that  I  have  written  only  of  the  men — among 
hundreds  of  convicts — who  have  most  interested 
me;  men  whom  I  have  known  thoroughly  and 
who  never  attempted  to  deceive  me.  Every 
writer's  vision  of  life  and  of  humanity  is  inevi- 
tably colored  by  his  own  personality,  and  I  have 
pictured  these  men  as  I  saw  them;  but  I  have 
also  endeavored,  in  using  so  much  from  their 
letters,  to  leave  the  reader  free  to  form  his  own 
opinion.  Doubtless  the  key  to  my  own  position 
is  the  fact  that  I  always  studied  these  prisoners 
as  men;  and  I  tried  not  to  obscure  my  vision  by 
looking  at  them  through  their  crimes.  In  recall- 
ing conversations  I  have  not  depended  upon 
memory  alone,  as  much  of  what  was  said  in  our 
interviews  was  written  out  while  still  fresh  in  my 

mind. 

vii 


PREFACE 

I  have  no  wish  to  see  our  prisons  abolished; 
but  thousands  of  individuals  and  millions  of  dol- 
lars have  been  sacrificed  to  wrong  methods  of 
punishment;  and  if  we  aim  to  reform  our  criminals 
we  must  first  reform  our  methods  of  dealing  with 
them,  from  the  police  court  to  the  penitentiary. 

WINIFRED  LOUISE  TAYLOR. 
August  6,  1914. 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

CHAPTER  I 

I  HAVE  often  been  asked:  "How  did  you  come 
to  be  interested  in  prisoners  in  the  first  place  ?  " 

It  all  came  about  simply  and  naturally.  I 
think  it  was  W.  F.  Robertson  who  first  made 
clear  to  me  the  truth  that  what  we  put  into  life 
is  of  far  more  importance  than  what  we  get  out 
of  it.  Later  I  learned  that  life  is  very  generous 
in  its  returns  for  what  we  put  into  it. 

In  a  quiet  hour  one  day  it  happened  that  I 
realized  that  my  life  was  out  of  balance;  that 
more  than  my  share  of  things  worth  having  were 
coming  to  me,  and  that  I  was  not  passing  them 
on;  nor  did  I  see  any  channel  for  the  passing  on 
just  at  hand. 

The  one  thing  that  occurred  to  me  was  to  offer 
my  services  as  teacher  in  a  Sunday-school.  Now, 
I  chanced  to  be  a  member  of  an  Episcopal  church 
and  their  Sunday-school  was  held  at  an  hour  in- 

3 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

convenient  for  my  attendance;  however,  in  our 
neighborhood  was  a  Methodist  church,  and  as  I 
had  little  regard  for  dividing  lines  among  Chris- 
tians I  offered  my  services  the  next  Sunday  to 
this  Methodist  Sunday-school.  My  preference 
was  for  a  class  of  young  girls,  but  I  was  assigned 
as  teacher  to  a  class  of  ten  young  men,  of  ages 
ranging  between  eighteen  and  twenty  years,  and 
having  the  reputation  of  decided  inclination  to- 
ward the  pomps  and  the  vanities  so  alluring  to 
youth. 

It  was  the  season  of  revival  meetings,  and  within 
a  month  every  member  of  my  class  was  vibrating 
under  the  wave  of  religious  excitement,  and  each 
one  in  turn  announced  his  "conversion."  I 
hardly  knew  how  to  handle  the  situation,  for  I 
was  still  in  my  twenties,  and  as  an  Episcopalian 
I  had  never  experienced  these  storm  periods  of  re- 
ligious enthusiasm.  So  while  the  recent  converts 
were  rejoicing  in  the  newly  found  grace,  I  was 
considering  six  months  later  when  a  reaction 
might  set  in. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  revival  one  of  the 
class  said  to  me:  "I  don't  know  what  we're  going 
to  do  with  our  evenings  when  the  prayer-meet- 
ings are  over,  for  there's  no  place  open  every 

4 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

evening  to  the  men  in  this  town  except  the  sa- 
loons." 

"We  must  make  a  place  where  you  boys  can 
go,"  was  my  reply. 

What  the  class  proceeded  to  do,  then  and 
there,  was  to  form  a  club  and  attractively  furnish 
a  large,  cheerful  room,  to  which  each  member 
had  a  pass-key;  and  to  start  a  small  circulating 
library,  at  one  stroke  meeting  their  own  need 
and  beginning  to  work  outward  for  the  good  of 
the  community. 

The  first  contribution  toward  this  movement 
was  from  a  Unitarian  friend.  Later,  Doctor 
Robert  Collyer — then  preaching  in  Chicago — and 
Doctor  E.  E.  Hale,  of  Boston,  each  gave  a  lecture 
for  the  benefit  of  our  infant  library.  Thus  from 
the  start  we  were  untrammelled  by  sectarianism, 
and  in  three  months  a  library  was  founded  des- 
tined to  become  the  nucleus  of  a  flourishing  public 
library,  now  established  in  a  beautiful  Carnegie 
building,  and  extending  its  beneficent  influence 
throughout  the  homes,  the  schools,  and  the  work- 
shops of  the  city. 

Of  course  I  was  immensely  interested  in  the 
class,  and  in  the  success  of  their  library  venture, 
and  as  we  had  no  money  to  pay  for  the  services 

5 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

of  a  regular  librarian  the  boys  volunteered  their 
services  for  two  evenings  in  the  week,  while  I  took 
charge  on  Saturday  afternoons.  This  library  was 
the  doorway  through  which  I  entered  the  prison 
life. 

One  Saturday  a  little  boy  came  into  the  li- 
brary and  handed  me  the  charming  Quaker  love 
story,  "Dorothy  Fox,"  saying:  "This  book  was 
taken  out  by  a  man  who  is  in  jail,  and  he  wants 
you  to  send  him  another  book." 

Now,  I  had  passed  that  county  jail  almost 
every  day  for  years;  its  rough  stone  walls  and  nar- 
row barred  windows  were  so  familiar  that  they  no 
longer  made  any  impression  upon  me;  but  it 
had  not  occurred  to  me  that  inside  those  walls 
were  human  beings  whose  thoughts  were  as  my 
thoughts,  and  who  might  like  a  good  story,  even 
a  refined  story,  as  much  as  I  did,  and  that  a  man 
should  pay  money  that  he  had  stolen  for  three 
months'  subscription  to  a  library  seemed  to  me 
most  incongruous. 

It  transpired  that  the  prisoner  was  a  Scotch 
boy  of  nineteen,  who,  being  out  of  work,  had 
stolen  thirty-five  dollars;  taking  small  amounts 
as  he  needed  them.  According  to  the  law  of  the 
State  the  penalty  for  stealing  any  amount  under 

6 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  value  of  fifteen  dollars  was  a  sentence  to  the 
county  jail,  for  a  period  usually  of  sixty  days; 
while  the  theft  of  fifteen  dollars  or  more  was  a 
penitentiary  offence,  and  the  sentence  never  for 
less  than  one  year.  I  quote  the  statement  of  the 
case  of  this  Scotch  boy  as  it  was  given  me  by  a 
man  who  happened  to  be  in  the  library  and  who 
knew  all  the  circumstances. 

"The  boy  was  arrested  on  the  charge  of  having 
taken  ten  dollars — all  they  could  prove  against 
him;  and  he  would  have  got  off  with  a  jail  sen- 
tence, but  the  fool  made  a  clean  breast  of  the 
matter,  and  now  he  has  to  lie  in  jail  for  six  months 
till  court  is  in  session,  and  then  he  will  be  sent  to 
the  penitentiary  on  his  own  confession." 

Two  questions  arose  in  my  mind:  Was  it  only 
"the  fool"  who  had  made  a  clean  breast  of  the 
case?  And  if  the  boy  was  to  go  to  prison  on  his 
own  confession,  was  it  not  an  outrage  that  he 
should  be  kept  in  jail  for  six  months  awaiting 
the  formalities  of  the  next  session  of  the  circuit 
court?  I  did  not  then  think  of  the  taxpayers, 
forced  to  support  this  boy  in  idleness  for  six 
months. 

That  night  I  did  not  sleep  very  well;  the  Scotch 
boy  was  on  my  mind,  all  the  more  vividly  be- 

7 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

cause  my  only  brother  was  of  the  same  age,  and 
then,  too,  the  words,  "I  was  in  prison  and  ye 
visited  me  not,"  repeated  themselves  with  in- 
sistent persistence  until  I  was  forced  to  meet  the 
question,  "Did  these  words  really  mean  anything 
for  to-day  and  now?" 

Next  morning  I  asked  my  father  if  any  one 
would  be  allowed  to  talk  with  a  prisoner  in  our 
jail.  My  father  said:  "Yes,  but  what  would  you 
have  to  say  to  a  prisoner?"  "I  could  at  least 
ask  him  what  books  he  would  like  from  the  li- 
brary," I  replied.  But  I  could  not  bring  my 
courage  to  the  point  of  going  to  the  jail;  it  seemed 
a  most  formidable  venture.  Sunday,  Monday, 
and  Tuesday  passed,  and  still  I  held  back;  on 
Wednesday  I  was  driving  with  my  brother,  and 
when  very  near  the  jail  the  spring  of  the  carriage 
broke,  and  my  brother  told  me  that  I  would  have 
to  fill  hi  time  somewhere  until  the  break  was  re- 
paired. I  realized  that  the  moment  for  decision 
had  come;  and  with  a  wildly  beating  heart  I 
took  the  decisive  step,  little  dreaming  when  I 
entered  the  door  of  that  jail  that  I  was  committing 
myself  to  prison  for  life. 

But  we  all  take  life  one  day,  one  hour,  at  a 
time;  and  five  minutes  later  when  my  hand  was 

8 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

clasped  through  the  grated  door,  and  two  big 
gray  eyes  were  looking  straight  into  mine,  I  had 
forgotten  everything  else  in  my  interest  in  the 
boy.  I  asked  him  why  he  told  that  he  had  taken 
thirty-five  dollars  when  accused  only  of  having 
taken  ten,  and  he  simply  said:  "Because  when  I 
realized  that  I  had  become  a  thief  I  wanted  to 
become  an  honest  man  and  I  thought  that  was 
the  place  to  begin." 

Had  I  known  anything  of  the  law  and  its  proc- 
esses I  should  doubtless  have  said:  "Well,  there's 
nothing  for  you  to  do  now  but  to  brace  up  and 
meet  your  fate.  There's  nothing  I  can  do  to 
help  you  out  of  this  trouble."  But  in  my  fortunate 
ignorance  of  obstacles  I  said:  "I'll  see  what  I 
can  do  to  help  you."  I  had  only  one  thought — to 
save  that  young  man  from  the  penitentiary  and 
give  him  a  fresh  start  in  life. 

I  began  with  the  person  nearest  at  hand,  the 
sheriff's  wife,  and  she  secured  the  sheriff  as  my 
first  adviser;  then  I  went  to  the  wife  of  the  prose- 
cuting attorney  for  the  State,  and  she  won  her 
husband  over  to  my  cause.  One  after  another 
the  legal  difficulties  were  overcome,  and  this  was 
the  way  the  matter  was  settled:  I  secured  a  good 
situation  for  Willy  in  case  of  his  release;  Willy 

9 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

gave  the  man  from  whom  he  had  taken  the  money 
a  note  for  the  full  amount  payable  in  ninety  days 
— the  note  signed  by  my  father  and  another  re- 
sponsible citizen;  the  case  was  given  a  rehearing 
on  the  original  charge  of  ten  dollars,  and  Willy's 
sentence  was  ten  days  in  the  county  jail;  and 
this  fortunate  settlement  of  the  affair  was  cele- 
brated with  a  treat  of  oranges  and  peanuts  for 
Willy  and  his  fellow  prisoners.  A  good  part  of 
that  ten  days  Willy  spent  in  reading  aloud  to 
the  other  men.  Immediately  after  release  he 
went  to  work  and  before  the  expiration  of  the 
ninety  days  the  note  for  thirty-five  dollars  was 
paid  in  full.  Now,  this  was  the  sensible,  fair, 
and  human  way  of  righting  a  wrong.  Neverthe- 
less, we  had  all  joined  hands  in  "compounding  a 
felony." 

With  Willy's  release  I  supposed  my  acquaint- 
ance with  the  jail  was  at  an  end,  but  the  boy  had 
become  interested  in  his  companions  in  misery 
and  on  his  first  visit  to  me  he  said:  "If  you  could 
know  what  your  visits  were  to  me  you  would 
never  give  up  going  to  the  jail  as  long  as  you  live." 
And  then  I  gave  him  my  promise.  "Be  to  others 
what  you  have  been  to  me,"  has  been  the  message 
given  to  me  by  more  than  one  of  these  men. 

10 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

While  a  prisoner  Willy  had  made  no  complaint 
of  the  condition  of  things  in  the  jail,  but  after 
paying  the  note  of  his  indebtedness,  he  proceeded 
to  buy  straw  and  ticking  for  mattresses,  which 
were  made  and  sent  up  to  the  jail  for  the  other 
prisoners,  while  I  furthered  his  efforts  to  make  the 
existence  of  those  men  more  endurable  by  con- 
tributing various  "exterminators"  calculated  to 
reduce  the  number  of  superfluous  inhabitants  in 
the  cells. 

At  the  time  I  supposed  that  Willy  was  an  ex- 
ception, morally,  to  the  usual  material  from  which 
criminals  are  made.  I  do  not  think  so  now,  after 
twenty-five  years  of  friendships  with  criminals; 
of  study  of  the  men  themselves  and  of  the  con- 
ditions and  circumstances  which  led  to  their  being 
imprisoned. 

Willy's  was  a  kindly  nature,  responsive,  yield- 
ing readily  to  surrounding  influences,  not  so  much 
lacking  in  honesty  as  in  the  power  of  resistance. 
Had  he  been  subjected  to  the  disgrace,  the  humili- 
ation, and  the  associations  of  a  term  in  the  peni- 
tentiary, where  the  first  requirement  of  the  dis- 
cipline is  non-resistance,  he  might  easily  have 
slipped  into  the  ranks  of  the  "habitual"  criminal, 
from  which  it  is  so  difficult  to  find  an  exit.  I  am 

ii 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

not  sure  that  Willy  was  never  dishonest  again; 
but  I  am  sure  of  his  purpose  to  be  honest;  and  the 
last  that  I  knew  of  him,  after  several  years  of 
correspondence,  he  was  doing  well,  running  a 
cigar-stand  and  small  circulating  library  in  a 
Western  town. 

From  that  beginning  I  continued  my  visits  to 
the  jail,  usually  going  on  Sunday  mornings  when 
other  visitors  were  not  admitted.  And  on  Sun- 
day mornings  when  the  church-bells  were  calling, 
the  prisoners  seemed  to  be — doubtless  were — in  a 
mood  different  from  that  of  the  week-days. 
There's  no  doubt  of  the  mission  of  the  church- 
bells,  ringing  clear  above  the  tumult  of  the  world, 
greeting  us  on  Sunday  mornings  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave. 

I  did  not  hold  any  religious  services.  I  did  not 
venture  to  prescribe  until  I  had  found  out  what 
was  the  matter.  It  was  almost  always  books 
that  opened  the  new  acquaintances,  for  through 
the  library  I  was  able  to  supply  the  prisoners 
with  entertaining  reading.  They  made  their  own 
selections  from  our  printed  lists,  and  I  was  sur- 
prised to  find  these  selections  averaging  favor- 
ably with  the  choice  of  books  among  good  citizens 
of  the  same  grade  of  education.  There  certainly 

12 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

was  some  incongruity  between  the  broken  head, 
all  bandages,  the  ragged  apparel,  and  the  liter- 
ary taste  of  the  man  who  asked  me  for  "some- 
thing by  George  Eliot  or  Thackeray. " 

A  short  story  read  aloud  was  always  a  pleas- 
ure to  the  men  behind  the  bars;  more  than  once 
I  have  been  able  to  form  correct  conclusions  as 
to  the  guilt  or  the  innocence  of  a  prisoner  by  the 
expression  of  his  face  when  I  was  reading  some- 
thing that  touched  the  deeper  springs  of  human 
nature.  And  my  sense  of  humor  stood  me  in 
good  stead  with  these  men;  for  there's  no  free- 
masonry like  that  of  the  spontaneous  smile  that 
springs  from  the  heart;  and  after  we  had  once 
smiled  together  we  were  no  longer  strangers. 

One  early  incident  among  my  jail  experiences 
left  a  vivid  impression  with  me.  A  boy  of  some 
thirteen  summers,  accused  of  stealing,  was  de- 
tained in  jail  several  weeks  awaiting  trial,  with 
the  prospect  of  the  reform  school  later.  In  ap- 
pearance he  was  attractive,  and  his  youth  ap- 
pealed to  one's  sympathy.  Believing  that  he 
ought  to  be  given  a  better  chance  for  the  future 
than  our  reform  schools  then  offered,  I  tried  to 
induce  the  sheriff  to  ask  some  farmer  to  take  him 
in  hand.  The  sheriff  demurred,  saying  that  no 

13 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

farmer  would  want  the  boy  in  his  family,  as  he 
was  a  liar  and  very  profane,  and  consequently  I 
dropped  the  subject. 

In  the  jail  at  the  same  time  was  a  man  of  forty 
or  over  who  frankly  told  me  that  he  had  been  a 
criminal  and  a  tramp  since  boyhood,  that  he  had 
thrown  away  all  chances  in  life  and  lost  all  self- 
respect  forever.  I  took  him  at  his  own  valuation 
and  he  really  seemed  about  as  hopeless  a  case  as 
I  have  ever  encountered.  One  lovely  June  eve- 
ning when  I  went  into  the  corridor  of  the  jail  to 
leave  a  book,  this  old  criminal  called  me  beside 
his  cell  for  a  few  words. 

"Don't  let  that  boy  go  to  the  reform  school," 
he  began  earnestly.  "The  reform  school  is  the 
very  hotbed  of  crime  for  a  boy  like  that.  Save 
him  if  you  can.  Save  him  from  a  life  like  mine. 
Put  him  on  a  farm.  Get  him  into  the  country, 
away  from  temptation." 

"But  the  sheriff  tells  me  he  is  such  a  liar  and 
swears  so  that  no  decent  people  would  keep  him," 
I  replied. 

"I'll  break  him  of  swearing,"  said  the  man  im- 
petuously, "and  I'll  try  to  break  him  of  lying. 
Can't  he  see  what  /  am  ?  Can't  he  see  what  he'll 
come  to  if  he  doesn't  brace  up?  I'm  a  living 

14 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

argument — a  living  example  of  the  folly  and  deg- 
radation of  stealing  and  lying.  I  can't  ever  be 
anything  but  what  I  am  now,  but  there's  hope 
for  that  boy  if  some  one  will  only  give  him  a 
chance,  and  I  want  you  to  help  him." 

The  force  of  his  appeal  was  not  to  be  resisted, 
and  I  agreed  to  follow  his  lead  in  an  effort  to  save 
his  fellow  prisoner  from  destruction.  As  I  stood 
there  in  the  twilight  beside  this  man  reaching 
out  from  the  wreck  and  ruin  of  his  own  life  to 
lend  a  hand  in  the  rescue  of  this  boy,  if  only  the 
"good  people"  would  do  their  part,  I  hoped  that 
Saint  Peter  and  the  Recording  Angel  were  look- 
ing down.  And  as  I  said  good  night — with  a 
hand-clasp — I  felt  that  I  had  touched  a  human 
soul. 

The  man  kept  his  word,  the  boy  gave  up 
swearing  and  braced  up  generally,  and  I  kept  my 
part  of  the  agreement;  but  I  do  not  know  if  our 
combined  efforts  had  a  lasting  effect  on  the  young 
culprit. 

As  time  passed  many  of  these  men  were  sent 
from  the  jail  to  the  State  penitentiary,  and  often 
a  wife  or  family  was  left  in  destitution;  and  the 
destitution  of  a  prisoner's  wife  means  not  only 
poverty  but  heart-break,  disgrace,  and  despair. 

15 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Never  shall  I  forget  the  first  time  I  saw  the  part- 
ing of  a  wife  from  her  husband  the  morning  he 
was  taken  to  prison.  A  sensitive,  high-strung, 
fragile  creature  she  was;  and  going  out  in  the 
bitter  cold  of  December,  carrying  a  heavy  boy 
of  eighteen  months  and  followed  by  an  older  girl, 
she  seemed  the  very  embodiment  of  desolation. 
I  have  been  told  by  those  who  do  not  know  the 
poor  that  they  do  not  feel  as  we  do,  that  their 
sensibilities  are  blunted,  their  imagination  torpid. 
Could  we  but  know !  Could  we  but  know,  we 
should  not  be  so  insensate  to  their  sufferings.  It 
is  we  who  are  dull.  To  that  prisoner's  wife  that 
morning  life  was  one  quivering  torture,  with  abso- 
lutely no  escape  from  agonizing  thoughts.  Her 
"home"  to  which  I  went  that  afternoon  was  a 
cabin  in  which  there  was  one  fire,  but  scant  food, 
and  no  stock  of  clothing;  the  woman  was  ignorant 
of  charitable  societies  and  shrinking  from  the 
shame  of  exposing  her  needs  as  a  convict's 
.wife. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  make  things  happen  in 
small  towns  when  people  know  each  other  and 
live  within  easy  distances.  In  less  time,  really 
less  actual  time  than  it  would  have  taken  to  write 
a  paper  for  the  Woman's  Club  on  "The  Problems 

16 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  Poverty,"  this  prisoner's  wife  was  relieved 
from  immediate  want.  To  tell  her  story  to  half 
a  dozen  acquaintances  who  had  children  and 
superfluous  clothing,  to  secure  a  certain  monthly 
help  from  the  city,  was  a  simple  matter;  and  in  a 
few  months  the  woman  was  taking  in  sewing — 
and  doing  good  work — for  a  reliable  class  of 
patrons. 

I  have  not  found  the  poor  ungrateful;  twenty 
years  afterward  this  woman  came  to  me  in  pros- 
perity from  another  town,  where  she  had  been  a 
successful  dressmaker,  to  express  once  more  her 
gratitude  for  the  friendship  given  in  her  time  of 
need.  Almost  without  exception  with  my  pris- 
oners and  with  their  families  I  have  found  grati- 
tude and  loyalty  unbounded. 

When  the  men  sent  from  the  jail  to  the  peni- 
tentiary had  no  family  they  naturally  wrote  to 
me.  Sometimes  they  learned  to  write  while  in 
jail  or  after  they  reached  the  prison  just  for  the 
pleasure  of  interchanging  letters  with  some  one. 
All  prison  correspondence  is  censored  by  some 
official;  and  as  my  letters  soon  revealed  my  dis- 
interested relation  to  the  prisoners,  the  warden, 
R.  W.  McClaughrey,  now  of  national  fame,  sent 
me  an  invitation  to  spend  several  days  as  his 

17 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

guest,  and  thus  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
institution. 

It  was  a  great  experience,  an  overwhelming  ex- 
perience when  first  I  realized  the  meaning  of 
prison  life.  I  seemed  to  be  taken  right  into  the 
heart  of  it  at  once.  The  monstrous  unnatural- 
ness  of  it  all  appalled  me.  The  great  gangs  of 
creatures  in  stripes  moving  in  the  lock-step  like 
huge  serpents  were  all  so  unhuman.  Their  dumb 
silence — for  even  the  eyes  of  a  prisoner  must  be 
dumb — was  oppressive  as  a  nightmare.  The  hope- 
less misery  of  the  men  there  for  life;  already  en- 
tombed, however  long  the  years  might  stretch 
out  before  them,  and  the  wild  entreaty  in  the  eyes 
of  those  dying  in  the  hospital — for  the  eyes  of  the 
dying  break  all  bonds — these  things  haunted  my 
dreams  long  afterward.  Later  I  learned  that 
even  in  prison  there  are  lights  among  the  shadows, 
and  that  sunny  hearts  may  still  have  their  gleams 
of  sunshine  breaking  through  the  darkness  of 
their  fate;  but  my  first  impression  was  one  of 
unmitigated  gloom.  When  I  expressed  some- 
thing of  this  to  the  warden  his  response  was: 
"Yes,  every  life  here  represents  a  tragedy — a 
tragedy  if  the  man  is  guilty,  and  scarcely  less  a 
tragedy  if  he  is  innocent." 

18 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

As  the  guest  of  the  warden  I  remained  at  the 
penitentiary  for  several  days  and  received  a  most 
cordial  standing  invitation  to  the  institution, 
with  the  privilege  of  talking  with  any  prisoner 
without  the  presence  of  an  officer.  The  unspeak- 
able luxury  to  those  men  of  a  visit  without  the 
presence  of  a  guard !  Some  of  the  men  with  whom 
I  talked  had  been  in  prison  for  ten  years  or  more 
with  never  a  visitor  from  the  living  world  and 
only  an  occasional  letter. 

My  visits  to  the  penitentiary  were  never  oftener 
than  twice  a  year,  and  I  usually  limited  the  list 
of  my  interviews  to  twenty-five.  With  whatever 
store  of  cheerfulness  and  vitality  I  began  these 
interviews,  by  the  time  I  had  entered  into  the 
lives  of  that  number  of  convicts  I  was  so  submerged 
in  the  prison  atmosphere,  and  the  demand  upon 
my  sympathy  had  been  so  exhausting,  that  I 
could  give  no  more  for  the  time.  I  found  that  the 
shortest  and  the  surest  way  for  me  to  release  my- 
self from  the  prison  influence  was  to  hear  fine 
stirring  music  after  a  visit  to  the  penitentiary. 
But  for  years  I  kept  my  list  up  to  twenty-five, 
making  new  acquaintances  as  the  men  whom  I 
knew  were  released.  Prisoners  whom  I  did  not 
know  would  write  me  requesting  interviews,  and 

19 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  men  whom  I  knew  often  asked  me  to  see  their 
cell-mates,  and  I  had  a  touch-and-go  acquaint- 
ance with  a  number  of  prisoners  not  on  my  lists. 

Thus  my  circle  gradually  widened  to  include 
hundreds  of  convicts  and  ex-convicts  of  all  grades, 
from  university  men  to  men  who  could  not  read; 
however,  it  was  the  men  who  had  no  friends  who 
always  held  the  first  claim  on  my  sympathy;  and 
as  the  years  went  on  I  came  more  and  more  in 
contact  with  the  "habitual  criminals,"  the  hope- 
less cases,  the  left-over  and  forgotten  men;  some 
of  them  beyond  the  pale  of  interest  even  of  the 
ordinary  chaplain — for  there  are  chaplains  and 
chaplains,  as  well  as  convicts  and  convicts. 

I  suppose  it  was  the  very  desolation  of  these 
men  that  caused  their  quick  response  to  any  evi- 
dence of  human  interest.  In  their  eagerness  to 
grasp  the  friendship  of  any  one  who  remembered 
that  they  were  still  men — not  convicts  only — these 
prisoners  would  often  frankly  tell  the  stories  of 
their  lives;  admitting  guilt  without  attempt  at 
extenuation.  No  doubt  it  was  an  immense  re- 
lief to  them  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  their  past 
to  one  who  could  understand  and  make  allow- 
ance. 

This  was  not  always  so;  some  men  lied  to  me 
20 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

and  simply  passed  out  of  my  remembrance;  but  I 
early  learned  to  suspend  judgment,  and  when  I 
saw  that  a  man  was  lying  through  the  instinct  of 
self-defence,  because  he  did  not  trust  me,  I  gave 
him  a  chance  to  "size  me  up,"  and  reassure  him- 
self as  to  my  trustworthiness.  "Why,  I  just 
couldn't  go  on  lying  to  you  after  I  saw  that  you 
were  ready  to  believe  in  me,"  was  the  candid 
admission  of  one  who  never  lied  to  me  again. 

Among  these  convicts  I  encountered  some  un- 
mistakable degenerates.  The  most  optimistic 
humanitarian  cannot  deny  that  in  all  classes  of 
life  we  find  instances  of  moral  degeneracy.  This 
fact  has  been  clearly  demonstrated  by  sons  of 
some  of  our  multimillionaires.  And  human 
nature  does  not  seem  to  be  able  to  stand  the 
strain  of  extreme  poverty  any  better  than  it 
stands  the  plethora  caused  by  excessive  riches. 
The  true  degenerate,  however,  is  usually  the  re- 
sult of  causes  too  complicated  or  remote  to  be 
clearly  traced.  But  throughout  my  long  experi- 
ence with  convicts  I  have  known  not  more  than  a 
dozen  who  seemed  to  me  black-hearted,  deliber- 
ate criminals;  and  among  these,  as  it  happened, 
but  one  was  of  criminal  parentage.  Crime  is  not 
a  disease;  but  there's  no  doubt  that  disease  often 

21 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

leads  to  crime.  Of  the  defective,  the  feeble- 
minded, the  half-insane,  and  the  epileptic  there 
are  too  many  in  every  prison;  one  is  too  many; 
but  they  can  be  counted  by  the  hundreds  in  our 
aggregate  of  prisons.  Often  warm-hearted,  often 
with  strong  religious  tendencies,  they  are  deficient 
in  judgment  or  in  moral  backbone.  The  screw 
loose  somewhere  in  the  mental  or  physical  make- 
up of  these  men  makes  the  tragedies,  the  prac- 
tically hopeless  tragedies  of  their  lives;  though 
there  may  never  have  been  one  hour  when  they 
were  criminal  through  deliberate  intention.  Then 
there  are  those  whose  crimes  are  simply  the  re- 
sult of  circumstances,  and  of  circumstances  not 
of  their  own  making.  Others  are  prisoners  un- 
justly convicted,  innocent  of  any  crime;  but  every 
convict  is  classed  as  a  criminal,  as  is  inevitable; 
and  under  the  Bertillon  method  of  identification 
his  very  person  is  indissolubly  connected  with  the 
criminal  records.  Even  in  this  twentieth  century, 
in  so  many  directions  an  age  of  marvellous  prog- 
ress, there  is  a  menacing  tendency  among  legis- 
lators to  enlarge  the  borders  of  life  sentences— 
not  according  to  the  number  of  crimes  a  man  may 
have  committed,  but  according  to  the  number  of 
times  a  man  has  been  convicted  in  courts  notori- 

22 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

ously  indifferent  to  justice;  too  often  according 
to  the  number  of  times  the  man  has  been  "the 
victim  of  our  penal  machinery." 

I  well  remember  a  man  three  times  sent  from 
my  own  county  to  the  penitentiary  for  thefts 
committed  during  the  brain  disturbance  preced- 
ing epileptic  convulsions.  On  one  occasion,  be- 
tween arrest  and  conviction,  I  saw  the  man  in  an 
unconscious  state  and  in  such  violent  convulsions 
that  it  was  necessary  to  bind  him  to  the  iron 
bedstead  on  which  he  lay.  I  knew  but  little  of 
physiological  psychology  then;  and  no  one  con- 
nected the  outbreaks  of  theft  with  the  outbreaks 
of  epilepsy.  And  the  man,  industrious  and  honest 
when  well,  was  in  consequence  of  epileptic  mental 
disturbance  convicted  of  crime  and  sent  to  the 
penitentiary,  and  owing  to  previous  convictions 
from  the  same  cause  was  classed  as  an  "habitual 
criminal." 

Like  instances  of  injustice  resulting  from  igno- 
rance are  constantly  occurring.  In  our  large  cities 
where  "railroading"  men  to  prison  is  purely  a 
matter  of  business,  no  consideration  is  given  to 
the  individual  accused,  he  is  no  longer  a  human 
being,  he  is  simply  "a  case."  A  very  able  and 
successful  prosecuting  attorney — success  esti- 

23 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

mated  by  the  number  of  "cases"  convicted— 
once  said  to  me:  "I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
innocence  of  the  man:  I'm  here  to  convict." 

By  far  the  most  brutal  man  whom  I  have  ever 
personally  encountered  was  a  modern  prototype 
of  the  English  judge,  Lord  George  Jeffreys — a 
judge  in  one  of  our  large  cities,  who  had  held  in 
his  unholy  hands  the  fate  of  many  an  accused 
person.  However,  with  this  one  exception,  in  my 
experience  with  judges  I  have  found  them  cour- 
teous, fair-minded,  and  glad  to  assist  me  when 
convinced  that  a  convict  had  not  been  accorded 
justice. 

We  find  hi  the  prisons  the  same  human  nature 
as  in  the  churches;  far  differently  developed  and 
manifested;  but  not  so  different  after  all,  as  we 
should  expect,  remembering  the  contrast  between 
the  home  influence,  the  education,  environment, 
and  opportunity  of  the  inmates  of  our  prisons 
with  that  of  the  representatives  of  our  churches. 
In  our  prisons  we  find  Cowardice,  brutality,  dis- 
honesty, and  selfishness.  Are  our  church  mem- 
berships altogether  free  from  these  defects? 
Surely,  unquestionably,  in  our  churches  we  do 
find  the  highest  virtues:  love,  courage,  fortitude, 
tenderness,  faithfulness,  unselfishness.  And  in 

24 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

every  prison  in  this  land  these  same  virtues- 
love,  tenderness,  courage,  fortitude,  faithfulness, 
unselfishness — are  to  be  found;  often  hidden  in  the 
silence  of  the  heart,  but  living  sparks  of  the  divine 
life  which  is  our  birthright.  And  yet  between 
these  prisons  and  the  churches  there  has  long 
existed  an  almost  impassable  barrier  of  distrust, 
equally  strong  on  both  sides. 

I  once  called  with  a  friend  upon  the  wife  of  a 
convict  who,  relating  an  incident  in  which  she 
had  received  great  kindness  from  a  certain  lady 
very  prominent  in  church  circles,  said:  "I  was  so 
surprised:  I  could  not  understand  her  being  so 
kind— for  she  was  a  Christian."  "Why,  there's 
nothing  strange  in  the  kindness  of  a  Christian," 
said  my  friend.  "Miss  Taylor  and  I  are  both 
Christians."  The  prisoner's  wife  paused  a  mo- 
ment, then  said,  with  slow  emphasis:  "That  is 
impossible." 

We  all  have  our  standards  and  ideals,  not  by 
which  we  live  but  by  which  we  judge  one  another. 
This  woman  knew  the  sweat-shops  and  she  knew 
that  Christian  as  well  as  Jew  lived  in  luxury  from 
the  profits  derived  from  the  labor  of  the  sweat- 
shops, and  of  the  underpaid  shop-girls.  To  her 
the  great  city  churches  meant  oppression  and 

25 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

selfishness,  power  and  wealth,  arrayed  against 
poverty  and  weakness,  against  fair  pay  and  fair 
play.  Her  own  actual  personal  experience  with 
some  persons  classed  as  Christians  had  been  bitter 
and  cruel;  thus  her  vision  was  warped  and  her 
judgment  misled.  Much  of  the  same  feeling  had 
prevailed  through  the  prisons;  and  I  know  that 
one  reason  why  so  many  of  "the  incorrigibles " 
gave  me  their  confidence  was  owing  to  the  word 
passed  round  among  them:  "You  can  trust  her; 
she  is  no  Christian" 

This  has  a  strange  sound  to  us.  But  it  does 
not  sound  strange  at  all  when  we  hear  from  the 
other  side:  "You  can't  trust  that  man — he's 
been  a  convict." 

Through  the  genius,  the  energy,  the  spiritual 
enthusiasm  of  that  remarkable  woman  known 
among  prisoners  as  "The  Little  Mother,"  the 
barrier  between  the  churches  and  the  prisons  is 
recently  and  for  the  time  giving  way  on  the  one 
side.  The  chaplains  are  taken  for  granted  as 
part  of  the  prison  equipment,  and  their  preaching 
on  Sunday  as  the  work  for  which  they  are  paid. 
But  "The  Little  Mother"  comes  from  the  out- 
side, literally  giving  her  life  to  secure  a  chance  for 
ex-convicts  in  this  world.  She  brings  to  the  prisons 

26 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

a  fresh  interpretation  of  the  Christian  religion, 
as  help  for  the  helpless,  as  a  friend  to  the  friend- 
less. In  her  they  find  at  once  their  ideal  of  human 
goodness  and  a  lovely  womanhood,  and  through 
her  they  are  beginning  to  understand  what  the 
Christian  churches  intend  to  stand  for.  But  to 
undermine  the  barrier  on  the  side  of  society — 
to  bring  about  a  better  understanding  of  the  in- 
dividuals confined  behind  the  walls  which  society 
still  believes  necessary  in  self-protection — is,  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  case,  a  far  more  difficult 
undertaking.  Almost  inaccessible  to  the  out- 
sider is  the  heart  of  a  convict,  or  the  criminal's 
point  of  view  of  life.  In  fact  their  hearts  and  their 
points  of  view  differ  according  to  their  natures 
and  experiences.  But  to  think  of  our  prisoners 
in  the  mass — the  thousand  or  two  thousand  men 
cut  off  from  the  world  and  immured  in  each  of 
our  great  penitentiaries — is  to  think  of  them  as 
the  Inarticulate.  The  repression  of  their  lives 
has  been  fearful.  All  that  was  required  of  them 
was  to  be  part  of  the  machinery  of  the  prison 
system;  to  work,  to  obey,  to  maintain  discipline. 
Absolutely  nothing  was  done  to  develop  the  in- 
dividual. The  mental  and  psychic  influence  of 
the  prison  has  been  indescribably  stifling  and 

27 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

deadening.  Every  instinctive  impulse  of  move- 
ment, the  glance  of  the  eye,  the  smile  of  under- 
standing, the  stretch  of  weary  muscles,  the  turn- 
ing of  the  head,  all  must  be  guarded  or  repressed. 
The  whole  tendency  of  prison  discipline  has  been 
to  detach  the  individual  from  his  fellow  man;  at 
all  costs  to  prevent  communication  between  con- 
victs; and  to  stifle  all  expression  of  individuality 
except  between  cell-mates  when  the  day's  work 
was  over.  And  companionship  of  cell-mates  is 
Likely  to  pall  when  the  same  two  men  are  confined 
in  a  seven-by-four  cell  for  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  evenings  in  a  year.  Gradually  but 
inevitably  the  mind  dulls;  mental  impressions 
lose  their  clear  outlines  and  the  faculties  become 
atrophied.  I  have  seen  this  happen  over  and  over 
again. 

When  first  the  drama  of  prison  life  began  to 
unfold  before  me  I  looked  for  some  prisoner  to 
tell  the  story;  he  only  could  know  what  it  really 
meant.  But  the  desire  to  forget,  to  shake  off 
all  association,  even  the  very  thought  of  having 
been  connected  with  convict  life,  has  been  the 
instinctive  aim  of  the  average  man  seeking  re- 
instatement in  society.  Occasionally  a  human 
document  from  the  pen  of  an  ex-convict  appeared 

28 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

in  print,  but  few  of  them  were  convincing.  The 
writer's  own  consciousness  of  having  been  a  con- 
vict may  have  prevented  him  from  striking  out 
from  the  shoulder,  from  speaking  as  man  to  man, 
or  something  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  may  have 
discounted  the  value  of  the  statement  coming 
from  an  ex-convict;  more  likely  than  either  the 
spirit  was  so  gone  out  of  the  man  before  his  re- 
lease that  he  had  no  heart  or  courage  to  grapple 
with  the  subject;  and  he,  too,  shared  the  popular 
belief  that  prisons  are  necessary — for  others. 

It  was  the  poet  and  the  artist  in  Oscar  Wilde 
that  made  it  possible — perhaps  inevitable — for 
him  to  rend  the  veil  that  hides  the  convict  prison 
execution,  and  to  etch  the  horror  in  all  its  black- 
ness— a  scaffold  silhouetted  against  the  sky — in 
"The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol."  The  picture  is  a 
masterpiece,  and  it  is  the  naked  truth;  more 
effective  with  the  general  reader  than  his  "De 
Profundis,"  which  is  no  less  remarkable  as  litera- 
ture but  is  more  exclusively  an  analysis  of  Oscar 
Wilde's  own  spiritual  development  during  his 
prison  experience.  The  Russian  writer  Dos- 
toyevski,  also  with  pen  dipped  in  the  tears  and 
blood  of  actual  experience,  has  given  scenes  of 
Russian  convict  life  so  terrible  and  intense  that 

29 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  mind  of  the  reader  recoils  with  horror,  scoring 
one  more  black  mark  against  Russia  and  thanking 
God  that  in  our  dealings  with  convicts  we  are  not 
as  these  other  men.  But  not  long  ago  a  cry  from 
the  inside  penetrated  the  walls  of  a  Western  prison 
in  "Con  Sordini,"  a  poem  of  remarkable  power, 
written  by  a  young  poet-musician  who,  held  by 
the  clutches  of  the  law,  was  suffering  an  injustice 
which  a  Russian  would  be  slow  to  indorse.  No 
doubt  other  gifted  spirits  will  have  their  messages. 
But  in  the  mind  of  the  public,  genius  seemed  to 
lift  these  men  out  of  the  convict  into  the  literary 
class,  and  their  most  human  documents  were  too 
likely  to  be  regarded  only  as  literature.* 

Genius  is  rare  in  all  classes  of  life  and  my 
prison  friends  were  of  the  common  clay.  The 
rank  and  file  of  our  convicts  are  almost  as  inar- 
ticulate as  dumb,  driven  cattle,  many  of  them  in- 
capable of  tracing  the  steps  by  which  they  fell 
into  crime  or  of  analyzing  the  effects  of  imprison- 
ment. Some  of  them  have  not  learned  how  to 


*  Recent  periodicals  have  given  many  disclosures  convincing  to 
the  public  from  men  who  know  only  too  well  the  cruel  and  barbarous 
conditions  of  convict  life.  I  have  long  held  that  no  judge  should 
be  authorized  to  sentence  a  man  to  prison  until  the  judge  knew  by 
experience  what  prison  life  really  was.  And  now  we  are  having 
authentic  reports  from  those  in  authority  who  have  taken  a  volun- 
tary experience  of  convict  life. 

30 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

handle  words  and  find  difficulty  in  expressing 
thoughts  or  feelings;  especially  is  this  true  of  the 
ignorant  foreigners. 

One  of  the  men  whom  I  knew,  not  a  foreigner, 
but  absolutely  illiterate,  early  fell  into  criminal 
life,  and  before  he  was  twenty  years  old  was 
serving  a  sentence  of  life  imprisonment.  After  a 
period  of  unspeakable  loneliness  and  mental  misery 
he  was  allowed  attendance  at  the  prison  evening 
school.  He  told  me  that  he  could  not  sleep  for 
joy  and  excitement  when  first  he  realized  that 
through  printed  and  written  words  he  could  come 
into  communication  with  other  minds,  find  com- 
panionship, gain  information,  and  come  in  touch 
with  the  great  free  world  on  the  outside.* 

As  I  look  back  through  my  twenty-five  years  of 
prison  friendship  it  is  like  looking  through  a  long 
portrait-gallery,  only  the  faces  are  living  faces  and 
the  lips  unite  in  the  one  message:  "We,  too,  are 
human  beings  of  like  nature  with  yourselves." 
To  me,  however,  each  face  brings  its  own  special 
message,  for  each  one  in  turn  has  been  my  teacher 


*  In  1913  an  Intra-Mural  School  was  started  in  the  Maryland 
penitentiary,  and  the  story  of  its  effect  on  the  minds  and  the  conduct 
of  the  thirty  per  cent  of  illiterate  individuals  in  that  prison  is  most 
interesting.  It  unquestionably  confirms  my  statement  that  the 
rank  and  file  of  our  convicts  are  inarticulate. 

31 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

in  the  book  of  life.  And  now  for  their  sakes  I  am 
going  to  break  the  seal  of  my  prison  friendships, 
and  to  let  some  of  these  convicts  open  their  hearts 
to  the  world  as  they  have  been  opened  to  me, 
and  to  give  their  vision  of  human  life;  to  draw  the 
picture  as  they  have  seen  it.  Some  of  them  bear 
the  brand  of  murderer,  others  belong  to  the  class 
which  the  law  denominated  as  "incorrigible."  I 
believe  I  had  the  reputation  of  knowing  the  very 
worst  men  in  the  prison,  "the  old-timers."  It 
could  not  have  been  true  that  my  friends  were 
among  the  worst  men  there,  for  my  prison  friend- 
ships, like  all  friendships,  were  founded  upon 
mutual  confidence;  and  never  once  did  one  of 
these  men  betray  my  trust. 


CHAPTER  II 

NOT  only  did  the  prisoners  whom  I  knew 
never  betray  my  confidence,  but  ex-con- 
victs who  knew  of  me  through  others  sometimes 
came  to  me  for  advice  or  assistance  in  getting 
work;  and  many  an  odd  job  about  our  place  was 
well  done  by  these  men,  who  never  gave  us  cause 
to  regret  our  confidence  in  them.  A  stranger 
fresh  out  of  jail  applied  to  me  one  cold  December 
day  just  before  the  holidays.  I  was  in  the  high 
tide  of  preparations  for  Christmas,  and  to  this 
young  man  I  gladly  intrusted  the  all-day  work  of 
trimming  the  house  with  holly  and  evergreen 
under  my  direction,  and  never  was  it  done  more 
effectively  or  with  more  of  the  Christmas  spirit. 
The  man  had  a  beautiful  time  and  confided  to 
my  mother  his  longing  to  have  a  home  of  his  own. 
He  left  us  at  evening  with  a  heart  warmed  by  the 
vision  of  a  real  home,  and  his  pay  supplemented 
by  a  good  warm  overcoat.  These  men  used  to 
make  all  sorts  of  frank  admissions  to  me  in  dis- 
cussing their  difficulties.  I  remember  one  man 
saying : 

33 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

"I  want  to  be  an  honest  man;  I  don't  like  this 
kind  of  a  life  with  all  its  risks;  I  want  to  settle 
down,  but  I  never  can  get  a  start.  Now,  if  I 
could  just  make  a  clean  steal  of  one  hundred  dol- 
lars I  could  get  some  decent  clothes,  pay  in  ad- 
vance at  a  respectable  boarding-house;  then  I 
could  get  a  job  and  I  could  keep  it;  but  no  one 
will  give  me  work  as  I  am,  and  no  one  will  trust 
me  for  board."  And  that  was  the  hard  fact. 
As  the  man  was  leaving  he  asked: 

"Could  you  give  me  one  or  two  newspapers?" 
As  I  handed  him  the  papers  he  explained: 
"You  see,  if  a  fellow  sleeps  on  the  bottom  of  a 
freight-car  these  cold  nights — as  I  am  likely  to  do 
— it's  not  quite  so  cold  and  hard  with  a  newspaper 
under  you,  and  if  I  button  them  under  my  coat 
it  isn't  quite  so  cold  out-of-doors."  It  was  no 
wonder  that  the  man  wanted  to  settle  down. 

Several  incidents  of  honor  among  thieves  are 
recorded  in  the  annals  of  our  household.  One 
evening  as  we  were  starting  for  our  usual  drive 
my  mother  exclaimed:  "Stop  a  minute!  There 
is  Katy's  sweetheart,  and  I  want  to  speak  to  him." 

Katy  was  our  cook  and  her  sweetheart  was  a 
stout,  blond  working  man  closely  resembling  the 
one  walking  up  our  front  driveway.  My  mother 

34 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

stopped  the  man  and  gave  him  this  bit  of  informa- 
tion: 

"The  house  is  all  open  and  any  one  could  go  in 
and  help  himself.  I  wish  you  would  ask  Katy  to 
lock  the  front  door."  The  man  bowed,  and  we 
drove  on. 

When  we  returned  Katy  reported  that  a  strange 
man  had  come  to  the  kitchen  door  and  told  her 
that  the  mistress  wished  her  to  lock  the  front  door. 
She  left  the  man  while  she  did  this  and  found  him 
waiting  when  she  came  back.  Then  he  asked  her 
for  something  to  eat,  stating  that  he  was  just  out 
of  prison,  and  wished  to  see  Miss (mention- 
ing my  name).  The  cook  gave  him  a  lunch  and 
made  an  appointment  for  me  to  see  him  next  day. 

Katy  did  not  resent  the  man's  being  taken  for 
her  Joe,  for  she  noticed  the  resemblance,  but 
there  was  reproach  in  her  tone  as  she  added: 
"But  you  know  Joe  always  dresses  up  when  he 
comes  to  see  me." 

At  the  appointed  hour  the  man  came  again, 
bringing  me  a  message  from  an  acquaintance,  a 
fellow  convict  who  had  been  his  cell-mate  in 
prison.  He  did  not  refer  to  the  fact  that  had  he 
chosen  he  might  have  taken  advantage  of  the  in- 
formation received  from  my  mother,  but  no  better 

35 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

plan  for  a  robbery  could  have  been  devised  than 
the  circumstance  that  fell  ready  to  his  hand. 

But  of  all  the  ex-convicts  employed  at  various 
times  on  our  place  the  one  in  whom  the  family 
took  the  greatest  interest  was  George — his  other 
name  does  not  matter  because  it  was  changed  so 
often. 

One  Sunday  morning  I  found  George  the  only 
prisoner  in  our  county  jail.  He  was  a  thief  await- 
ing trial  at  the  next  term  of  court  several  weeks 
ahead.  He  had  "shifty"  eyes  and  a  sceptical 
smile,  was  thin,  unkempt,  and  altogether  unpre- 
possessing; but  I  did  not  think  so  much  of  that  as 
of  his  loneliness.  He  was  reserved  concerning 
himself  but  seemed  to  have  some  education  and  a 
taste  for  reading,  so  I  supplied  him  with  books 
from  the  library  and  called  on  him  once  or  twice 
a  week;  but  I  made  slow  progress  with  acquaint- 
ance, and  one  day  George  said  to  me: 

"I  understand  perfectly  why  it  is  that  you 
come  to  see  me  and  bring  me  things  to  read;  you 
think  that  you  will  gain  a  higher  place  in  heaven 
when  you  die."  In  other  words,  George  thought 
that  I  was  using  him  as  a  stepping-stone  for  my 
own  advantage — his  sceptical  smile  was  not  for 
nothing. 

36 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

How  I  disarmed  his  suspicions  I  do  not  know; 
but  in  the  weeks  that  followed  before  he  was 
taken  to  prison  we  came  to  know  each  other  very 
well.  The  prison  life  was  hard  on  George,  so 
hard  that  when  I  first  saw  him  in  the  convict 
stripes  I  did  not  know  him,  so  emaciated  had  he 
become;  and  I  was  startled  when  his  smile  dis- 
closed his  identity.  Clearly  he  would  be  fit  for 
no  honest  work  when  released  from  prison.  He 
made  no  complaint — he  did  not  need  to,  for  his 
appearance  told  the  story  only  too  well.  George 
was  an  insignificant-looking  man,  only  one  of  the 
hundreds  consigned  to  that  place  of  punishment, 
and  by  mere  chance  had  been  given  work  far 
beyond  his  strength.  When  I  called  the  warden's 
attention  to  George  he  was  immediately  trans- 
ferred to  lighter  work,  and  was  in  better  condition 
when  I  saw  him  next  time. 

And  then  we  had  some  long  and  serious  talks 
about  his  way  of  life,  which  he  invariably  defended 
on  the  score  that  he  would  rather  be  "a  down- 
right honest  thief"  than  to  get  possession  of 
other  people's  property  under  cover  of  the  law, 
or  to  grind  the  poor  in  order  to  pile  up  more  money 
than  any  one  could  honestly  possess.  George 
thought  that  he  really  believed  all  business  men 

37 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

ready  to  take  any  unfair  advantage  of  others  so 
long  as  their  own  safety  was  not  endangered. 

With  the  expiration  of  this  term  in  prison 
George's  letters  to  me  ceased  for  a  while,  to  be 
resumed  later  from  a  prison  in  another  State 
where  he  was  working  in  the  greenhouses  and 
had  become  interested  in  the  flowers.  That  gave 
me  my  chance. 

In  a  fortunate  hour  I  had  encountered  a  little 
story  by  Edward  Everett  Hale,  "How  Mr.  Frye 
Would  Have  Preached  It,"  and  that  story  had 
formed  my  ideal  of  loyalty  to  my  prisoners  when 
once  they  trusted  me,  and  by  this  time  I  had 
won  the  confidence  of  George.  Accordingly,  I 
wrote  George  a  Christmas  letter  making  a  direct 
appeal  to  his  better  nature — for  I  knew  it  was 
there — and  I  asked  him  to  come  to  me  on  his 
release  the  following  July,  which  he  was  glad 
to  do. 

Now,  my  mother  had  always  been  sympathetic 
with  my  interest  in  prisoners,  and  she  dearly 
loved  her  flower  garden,  and  had  difficulty  in 
finding  intelligent  help  in  the  care  of  her  flowers. 
She  knew  that  George  was  just  out  of  prison,  and 
after  introducing  him  as  a  man  who  might  help 
her  with  her  roses  I  left  them  together. 

38 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

A  few  minutes  later  my  mother  came  to  me  and 
reported : 

"I  don't  like  the  looks  of  your  George:  he 
looks  like  a  thief." 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  "you  know  he  has  been  a 
thief,  and  if  you  don't  want  him  I'll  try  and  get 
another  place  for  him." 

But  the  flowers  were  pulling  at  my  mother's 
heart  and  she  decided  to  give  George  a  trial. 
And  what  a  good  time  they  both  had  that  summer ! 
It  was  beautiful  to  see  the  two  together  morning 
after  morning,  caring  for  those  precious  flowers 
as  if  they  were  babies.  My  mother  had  great 
charm,  and  George  was  devoted  to  her  and  proved 
an  altogether  satisfactory  gardener.  Unquestion- 
ably the  two  months  that  George  spent  with  us 
were  the  happiest  of  his  life.  My  mother  at  once 
forgot  all  her  misgivings  as  to  his  honesty  and 
came  to  regard  him  as  her  special  ally;  she  well 
knew  that  he  would  do  anything  in  his  power  to 
serve  her. 

One  afternoon  my  mother  informed  me  that 
she  was  going  driving  with  the  family  that  eve- 
ning— she  was  always  nervous  about  "leaving  the 
house  alone" — and  that  the  maids  were  going  to 
be  out,  too;  "  but  George  is  going  to  stay  in  charge 

39 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  the  house,  so  everything  will  be  all  right  and  I 
shall  not  worry,"  she  said  with  all  confidence. 

I  smiled;  but  I  had  no  misgiving,  and  sure 
enough  we  all  went  off,  not  even  locking  up  the 
silver;  while  George,  provided  with  newspapers 
and  cigars,  was  left  in  charge. 

On  our  return,  some  two  hours  later,  I  noticed 
that  George  was  unusually  serious  and  silent,  and 
apparently  didn't  see  any  joke  in  the  situation,  as 
he  had  on  a  former  occasion  when  I  sent  him  for 
something  in  a  closet  where  the  family  silver  was 
in  full  view.  He  told  me  afterward  that  the 
time  of  our  absence  covered  the  longest  two  hours 
of  his  life,  and  the  hardest  to  bear. 

My  home  is  on  the  edge  of  the  town  in  the 
midst  of  twelve  acres  with  many  trees.  "You 
had  not  more  than  gone,"  said  George,  "when  I 
began  to  think  'what  if  some  one  should  come  to 
rob  the  house  and  I  could  not  defend  it.  And 
they  could  never  know  that  I  had  not  betrayed 
their  trust.'" 

George  spent  his  Sundays  under  our  trees, 
sometimes  on  guard  in  the  orchard,  which  rather 
amused  him;  and  I  generally  gave  him  an  hour 
of  my  time,  suggesting  lines  of  work  by  which  he 
could  honestly  earn  his  living,  and  trying  my  best 

40 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

to  raise  his  moral  standards.  But  he  reserved  his 
right  to  plan  the  general  course  of  his  life,  or,  as 
he  would  have  said,  to  follow  his  own  line  of  busi- 
ness. He  knew  that  his  work  with  us  was  but  for 
the  time,  and  he  would  never  commit  himself  as 
to  his  future.  This  was  the  way  he  stated  his 
position : 

"I  have  no  health;  I  like  a  comfortable  place  to 
sleep  and  good  things  to  eat;  I  like  a  good  class 
of  entertainments  and  good  books,  and  to  buy 
magazines  and  send  them  to  my  friends  in  prison, 
and  I  like  to  help  a  man  when  he  is  just  out  of 
prison.  Now,  you  ask  me  to  forego  all  this;  to 
work  hard  just  to  earn  the  barest  living — for  I 
could  never  earn  big  wages;  you  ask  me  to  deny 
myself  everything  I  care  for  just  for  the  sake  of  a 
moral  idea,  when  nobody  in  the  world  but  you 
cares  whether  I  go  to  the  devil  or  not,  and  I 
don't  really  believe  in  either  God  or  devil.  Now, 
how  many  churchgoing  men  do  you  know  who 
would  give  up  a  money-making  business  and  ac- 
cept the  barest  poverty  and  loneliness  just  for  the 
sake  of  a  moral  idea  ?  "  And  I  wondered  how  many, 
indeed. 

However,  for  all  his  arguments  in  defence  of 
his  way  of  life,  when  the  time  came  to  leave  us 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

better  desires  had  taken  root.  My  mother's 
taking  his  honesty  for  granted  had  its  effect,  and 
seemed  to  commit  him  to  an  effort  in  the  right 
direction.  We  had  fitted  him  out  with  respect- 
able clothing  and  he  had  earned  money  to  last 
several  weeks.  My  mother  gave  him  a  letter  of 
recommendation  as  gardener  and  he  left  us  to 
seek  employment  in  the  parks  of  a  large  city. 

But  his  appearance  was  against  him  and  he  had 
no  luck  in  the  first  city  where  he  applied;  the  time 
of  the  year,  too,  was  unfavorable;  and  before  his 
money  had  quite  melted  away  he  invested  the 
remainder  in  a  peddler's  outfit  of  needles  and-other 
domestic  requisites.  These  he  sold  among  the 
wives  of  farmers,  and  in  that  way  managed  to 
keep  body  and  soul  together  for  a  time.  Frequent 
letters  kept  me  informed  of  his  whereabouts, 
though  little  was  said  of  his  hardships. 

One  morning  George  appeared  at  our  door 
seeming  more  dulled  and  depressed  than  I  had 
ever  seen  him.  He  stayed  for  an  hour  or  more 
but  was  not  very  communicative.  It  was  evident, 
however,  that  he  had  found  the  paths  of  honesty 
quite  as  hard  as  the  way  of  the  transgressor.  As 
he  was  leaving  he  said: 

"You  may  not  believe  me,  but  I  walked  all 
42 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

night  in  order  to  have  this  visit  with  you.  I  was 
off  the  railroad  and  couldn't  otherwise  make  con- 
nections with  this  place  in  time  to  keep  an  ap- 
pointment with  a  friend  this  evening;  and  I  wanted 
to  see  you." 

He  hurried  away  then  without  giving  me  time 
for  the  inevitable  surmise  that  the  "friend"  whom 
he  was  to  meet  was  an  "old  pal,"  and  leaving  me 
to  question  whether  I  had  another  friend  on  earth 
who  would  walk  all  night  in  order  to  see  me. 

Only  once  again  did  I  see  George;  he  was  look- 
ing more  prosperous  then,  and  handed  me  a 
ten-dollar  bill,  saying:  "At  last  I  can  return  the 
money  you  lent  me;  I  wanted  to  long  ago  but 
couldn't." 

I  did  not  remember  having  lent  him  the  money, 
and  so  I  told  him.  "But  I  want  you  to  take  it 
anyway,"  he  said. 

And  then,  brought  face  to  face  with  the  thief 
in  the  man,  I  replied: 

"I  cannot  take  from  you  money  that  is  not 
honestly  yours." 

Flushing  deeply  he  slowly  placed  the  bill  among 
some  others,  saying:  "All  right,  but  I  wanted 
you  to  take  it  because  I  knew  that  you  would 
make  better  use  of  it  than  I  shall."  Never  had 

43 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  actual  dividing  line  between  honesty  and  dis- 
honesty been  brought  home  to  George  as  at  that 
moment;  I  think  for  once  he  realized  that  right 
and  wrong  are  white  and  black,  not  gray. 

For  some  years  after  I  had  occasional  notes 
from  George;  I  answered  them  if  an  address  was 
given,  but  his  was  then  a  roving  life.  Always  at 
Christmas  came  a  letter  from  him  with  the  sea- 
son's greetings  to  each  member  of  the  family,  and 
usually  containing  a  line  to  the  effect  that  he  was 
"still  in  the  old  business."  When  my  sister  was 
married,  on  my  mother's  golden  wedding-day, 
among  the  notes  of  congratulation  to  the  bride 
of  fifty  years  before  and  the  bride  of  the  day  was 
one  from  George;  and  through  good  or  ill  report 
George  never  lost  his  place  in  the  regard  of  my 
mother. 

His  last  letter  was  written  from  an  Eastern 
Catholic  hospital  where  he  had  been  ill.  Con- 
valescent he  then  was  "helping  the  sisters,"  and 
he  hoped  that  they  might  give  him  employment 
when  he  was  well.  Helpful  I  knew  he  would  be, 
and  loyal  to  those  who  trusted  him.  I  wrote  him 
at  once  but  received  no  reply;  and  the  chances 
are,  as  I  always  like  to  think,  that  the  last  days 
of  George  were  apart  from  criminal  associations, 

44 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

and  that  the  better  elements  in  his  nature  were  in 
the  ascendant  when  the  end  came. 

I  believe  George  was  the  only  one  of  my  pris- 
oners who  even  made  a  bluff  in  defence  of  the  kind 
of  life  he  had  followed;  and  in  his  heart  he  knew 
that  it  was  all  wrong.  I  do  not  defend  him,  but  I 
do  not  forget  that  the  demoralization  of  the  man, 
his  lack  of  moral  grip,  was  the  logical  product  of 
the  schools  of  crime,  the  jails,  and  prisons  in  which 
so  much  of  his  youth  was  passed.  Yes,  the  life  of 
George  stands  as  a  moral  failure;  and  yet  as  long 
as  flowers  bloom  in  that  garden  where  he  and  my 
mother  spent  so  many  pleasant  hours  helping  the 
roses  to  blossom  more  generously,  so  long  will 
friendly  memories  cluster  around  the  name  of 
George,  and  he  certainly  did  his  part  well  in  the 
one  opportunity  that  life  seems  to  have  offered 
him. 


45 


CHAPTER  III 

DURING  the  last  twenty-five  years  there  has 
been  a  general  tendency  to  draw  sharp  hard- 
and-fast  dividing  lines  between  the  "corrigible" 
and  the  "incorrigible"  criminal.  It  has  been  as- 
sumed that  a  man  only  once  convicted  of  a  crime 
may  yet  be  amenable  to  reform,  but  that  a  sec- 
ond or  third  conviction — convictions,  not  neces- 
sarily crimes — is  proof  that  a  man  is  "incorri- 
gible," that  the  criminal  dye  is  set  and  the  man 
should  therefore  be  permanently  removed  from 
society.  This  really  does  appear  a  most  sensible 
arrangement  as  we  look  down  upon  the  upper 
side  of  the  proposition;  to  those  who  look  up  to  it 
from  below  the  appearance  is  altogether  different. 
A  distinguished  professor  in  a  law  school  has 
said:  "If  any  person  shall  be  a  third  time  con- 
victed of  any  crime,  no  matter  of  what  nature,  he 
should  be  imprisoned  at  hard  labor  for  life."  At 
a  National  Prison  Congress  in  1886  another  emi- 
nent professor  thus  indorsed  this  sentiment:  "I 
believe  there  is  but  one  cure  for  this  great  and 

46 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

growing  evil,  and  this  is  the  imprisonment  for  life 
of  the  criminal  once  pronounced  '  incorrigible. ": 
Later  the  governor  of  my  own  State  told  me  that 
he  would  consider  no  petition  for  shortening  the 
sentence  of  an  "habitual  criminal."  Any  leniency 
of  attitude  was  stigmatized  as  "rose-water  senti- 
ment." And  the  heart  of  the  community  hardened 
itself  against  any  plea  for  the  twice-convicted  man. 
What  fate  he  was  consigned  to  was  not  their  affair 
so  long  as  he  was  safely  locked  up. 

In  our  eagerness  for  self-protection  at  any  cost 
we  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  criminal  problem 
is  one  of  conditions  quite  as  much  as  of  "cases." 
In  our  large  cities,  the  great  reservoirs  of  crime, 
we  are  but  reaping  the  harvest  of  centuries  of  evil 
in  older  civilizations,  and  in  our  own  civilization 
as  well. 

So  far  we  have  been  dealing  with  effects  more 
than  with  causes.  Indeed,  our  dealings  with  law- 
breakers, from  the  hour  of  arrest  to  the  hour  of 
discharge  from  prison  have  served  to  increase 
rather  than  to  diminish  the  causes  of  crime.  True 
enough  it  is  that  thousands  of  our  fellow  men  have 
found  life  one  great  quicksand  of  criminal  and 
prison  experience  in  which  cause  and  effect  be- 
came in  time  inextricably  tangled. 

47 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

And  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  twice-con- 
victed man  is  in  no  way  responsible  for  his  first 
conviction,  as  happened  to  James  Hopkins,  a 
good  boy  reared  in  a  New  England  family  to  a 
belief  in  God  and  respect  for  our  courts.  He 
was  earning  his  living  honestly  when  he  was  ar- 
rested on  suspicion  in  Chicago  and  convicted  of  a 
burglary  of  which  he  knew  nothing.  He  knew 
nothing  either  of  the  wiles  of  the  courts  and  de- 
pended on  his  innocence  as  his  defence.  But  the 
burglary  was  a  daring  one;  some  one  must  be 
punished,  no  other  culprit  was  captured,  so  Hop- 
kins was  sent  to  one  of  our  schools  of  crime  sup- 
ported by  public  taxation  under  the  name  of 
penitentiaries.  Pure  homesickness  simply  over- 
powered the  boy  at  first.  "Night  after  night  I 
cried  myself  to  sleep,"  he  told  me.  His  cell  hap- 
pened to  be  on  the  top  row  where  there  was  a 
window  across  the  corridor,  and  summer  evenings 
he  could  look  across  out  into  a  field  so  like  the  field 
at  home  where  he  had  played  as  a  child.  But  the 
darkness  of  the  winter  evening  shut  out  every 
glimpse  of  anything  associated  with  home.  He 
had  not  written  his  mother;  he  could  not  disgrace 
her  with  a  letter  from  a  convict  son.  She  had 
warned  him  of  the  dangers  of  the  city,  but  she 

48 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

had  never  dreamed  of  what  those  dangers  really 
were.  She  firmly  believed  that  the  courts  were 
for  the  protection  of  the  innocent,  and  would  she 
believe  that  a  court  of  justice  had  sent  an  inno- 
cent man  to  prison  ?  He  lost  all  faith  in  God  and 
his  heart  hardened.  Branded  as  a  criminal,  a 
criminal  he  resolved  to  be;  and  when  I  met  him 
twenty  years  later  he  had  a  genuine  criminal 
record  as  a  scientific  safe-blower. 

In  spite  of  his  criminal  career  some  of  the  roots 
of  the  good  New  England  stock  from  which  he 
was  descended  cropped  out.  With  me  he  was  the 
gentleman  pure  and  simple,  discussing  courts  and 
prisons  in  a  manner  as  impersonal  as  my  own; 
and  he  was  a  man  of  intelligence  and  an  interest- 
ing talker.  I  had  come  in  touch  with  Hopkins 
because  I  was  at  the  time  planning  the  future  of 
his  young  cell-mate  and  I  wanted  the  advice  of 
the  older  man,  as  well  as  his  assistance  in  prepar- 
ing the  younger  to  meet  the  responsibilities  and 
temptations  of  freedom;  and  a  better  assistant  I 
could  not  have  had.  Concerning  his  own  future 
Hopkins  maintained  discreet  reserve  and  unbroken 
silence  as  to  his  inner  life.  He  had  deliberately 
stifled  a  Puritan  conscience;  but  I  doubt  if  it  was 
completely  silenced,  for  while  the  lines  in  his  face 

49 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

indicated  nothing  criminal  nor  dissipated  it  was 
the  face  of  a  man  in  whom  hope  and  ambition 
were  forever  dead,  a  face  of  unutterable  sad- 
ness.* 

I  am  free  to  admit  that  when  I  glance  over  the 
newspaper  reports  of  brutal  outrages  and  hor- 
rible crimes  my  sympathy  swings  over  wholly  to 
the  injured  party;  I,  too,  feel  as  if  no  measure 
could  be  too  severe  for  the  perpetrator  of  the 
crime.  That  there  are  human  beings  whose  con- 
finement is  demanded  by  public  safety  I  do  not 
question,  but  modern  scientific  study  is  leading 
us  to  the  conclusion  that  back  of  abnormal  crimes 
are  abnormal  physiological  conditions  or  abnormal 
race  tendencies.  And  the  "habitual  criminal"  is 
not  so  designated  because  of  the  nature  of  his 
crimes  but  because  of  the  number  of  his  infrac- 
tions of  the  law. 

I  might  have  concurred  with  the  opinions  of  the 


*We  instinctively  visualize  "confirmed  criminals"  with  faces 
corresponding  to  their  crimes.  But  our  prejudices  are  often  mis- 
leading. I  once  handed  to  a  group  of  prison  commissioners  the 
newspaper  picture  of  a  crew  of  a  leading  Eastern  university.  The 
crew  were  in  striped  suits  and  were  assumed  to  be  convicts,  with 
the  aid  of  a  little  suggestion.  It  was  interesting  to  see  the  confidence 
of  the  commissioners  as  they  pronounced  one  face  after  another 
"the  regular  criminal  type."  The  fact  is  that  with  one  or  two  ex- 
ceptions my  "habituals,"  properly  clothed,  might  have  passed  as 
church  members,  some  of  them  even  as  theological  students. 

50 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

learned  professors  were  it  not  that  just  when  legis- 
lation in  my  own  State  was  giving  no  quarter  to 
second  and  third  offenders  I  was  being  led  into 
the  midst  of  this  submerged  tenth  of  our  prison 
population,  and  my  loyalty  to  their  cause  has  been 
unswerving  ever  since. 

"Have  any  of  your  'habituals'  permanently  re- 
formed?" I  am  asked. 

They  certainly  have,  more  of  them  than  even 
my  optimism  expected  and  under  circumstances 
when  I  have  been  amazed  that  their  moral  deter- 
mination did  not  break.  In  my  preconceived 
opinion,  the  most  hopeless  case  I  ever  assisted 
surprised  me  by  settling  down,  under  favorable 
environment,  into  an  honest,  self-supporting  citi- 
zen; and  we  may  rest  assured  that  he  is  guarding 
his  boys  from  all  knowledge  of  criminal  life. 

After  I  came  to  understand  how  all  the  odds 
were  against  the  penniless  one,  scarred  and  crippled 
by  repeated  crimes  and  punishments,  it  was  not 
his  past  nor  his  future  that  interested  me  so 
deeply  as  what  was  left  of  the  man.  I  suppose  I 
was  always  hi  search  of  that  something  which  we 
call  the  soul.  And  I  sometimes  found  it  where  I 
least  looked  for  it — among  the  very  dregs  of  con- 
vict life. 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

John  Bryan  stands  out  in  clear  relief  in  this 
connection.  How  well  I  remember  my  first  meet- 
ing with  this  man,  who  was  then  more  than  forty 
years  old,  in  broken  health,  serving  a  twenty-year 
sentence  which  he  could  not  possibly  survive. 
He  had  no  family,  received  no  letters,  was  ut- 
terly an  outcast.  Crime  had  been  his  "profes- 
sion." *  His  face  was  not  brutal,  but  it  was  hard, 
guarded  in  expression  and  seamed  with  lines. 
The  facts  of  his  existence  he  accepted  apparently 
without  remorse,  certainly  without  hope.  This 
was  life  as  he  had  made  it,  yes — but  also  as  he  had 
found  it.  His  friends  had  been  men  of  his  own 
kind,  and,  judged  by  a  standard  of  his  own,  he  had 
respected  them,  trusted  them,  and  been  loyal  to 
them.  I  knew  this  well  for  I  sought  his  acquaint- 
ance hoping  to  obtain  information  supposed  to 
be  the  missing  link  in  a  chain  of  evidence  upon 
which  the  fate  of  another  man  depended.  I  as- 
sured Bryan  that  I  would  absolutely  guard  the 
safety  of  the  man  whose  address  I  wanted,  but 
Bryan  was  uncompromising  in  his  refusal  to  give 
it  to  me,  saying  only:  "Jenkins  is  a  friend  of  mine. 


*I  seldom  heard  the  terms  "habitual"  or  "incorrigible"  used  by 
men  of  his  class,  but  the  "professionals"  seemed  to  have  a  certain 
standing  with  each  other. 

52 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

You  can't  induce  me  to  give  him  away.  You  may 
be  sincere  enough  in  your  promises,  but  it's  too 
risky.  I  don't  know  you;  but  if  I  did  you  couldn't 
get  this  information  out  of  me."  Knowing  that 
"honor  among  thieves"  is  no  fiction  I  respected 
his  attitude. 

However,  something  in  the  man  interested  me, 
and  moved  to  break  in  upon  the  loneliness  and 
desolation  of  his  life  I  offered  to  send  him  maga- 
zines and  to  answer  any  letters  he  might  write 
me.  Doubtless  he  suspected  some  ulterior  mo- 
tive on  my  part,  for  in  the  few  letters  that  we 
exchanged  I  made  little  headway  in  acquaintance 
nor  was  a  second  interview  more  satisfactory. 
Bryan  was  courteous — my  prisoners  were  always 
courteous  to  me — but  it  was  evident  that  I  stood 
for  nothing  in  his  world.  One  day  he  wrote  me 
that  he  did  not  care  to  continue  our  correspond- 
ence, and  did  not  desire  another  interview.  Re- 
gretting only  that  I  had  failed  to  touch  a  re- 
sponsive chord  in  his  nature  I  did  not  pursue  the 
acquaintance  further. 

Some  time  afterward,  when  in  the  prison  hos- 
pital, I  noticed  the  name  "John  Bryan"  over  the 
door  of  one  of  the  cells.  Before  I  had  time  to 
think  John  Bryan  stood  in  the  door  with  out- 

53 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

stretched  hand  and  a  smile  of  warmest  welcome, 
saying: 

"  I  am  so  glad  to  see  you.  Do  come  in  and  have 
a  visit  with  me." 

"But  I  thought  you  wanted  never  to  see  me 
again,"  I  answered. 

"It  wasn't  you  I  wanted  to  shut  out.  It  was 
the  thought  of  the  whole  dreadful  outside  world 
that  lets  us  suffer  so  in  here,  and  you  were  a  part 
of  that  world." 

In  a  flash  I  understood  the  world  of  meaning  in 
his  words  and  during  the  next  hour,  in  this  our 
last  meeting,  the  seed  of  our  friendship  grew  and 
blossomed  like  the  plants  of  the  Orient  under  the 
hand  of  the  magician.  It  evidently  had  not  dawned 
on  him  before  that  I,  too,  knew  his  world,  that  I 
could  understand  his  feeling  about  it. 

For  two  years  he  had  been  an  invalid  and  his 
world  had  now  narrowed  to  the  "idle  room,"  the 
hospital  yard,  and  the  hospital;  his  associates  in- 
capacitated, sick  or  dying  convicts;  his  only  oc- 
cupation waiting  for  death.  But  he  was  given 
ample  opportunity  to  study  the  character  and 
the  fate  of  these  sick  and  dying  comrades.  He 
made  no  allusion  to  his  own  fate  but  told  me  how 
day  after  day  his  heart  had  been  wrung  with 

54 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

pity,  with  "the  agony  of  compassion"  for  these 
others. 

He  knew  of  instances  where  innocent  men  were 
imprisoned  on  outrageously  severe  and  unjust 
sentences,  of  men  whose  health  was  ruined  and 
whose  lives  were  blighted  at  the  hands  of  the 
State  for  some  trifling  violation  of  the  law;  of 
cases  where  the  sin  of  the  culprit  was  white  in 
comparison  with  the  sin  of  the  State  in  evils  in- 
flicted in  the  name  of  justice.  He  counted  it  a 
lighter  sin  to  rob  a  man  of  a  watch  than  to  rob  a 
man  of  his  manhood  or  his  health.  It  was,  in- 
deed, in  bitterness  of  spirit  that  he  regarded  the 
courts  and  the  churches  which  stood  for  justice 
and  religion,  yet  allowed  these  wrongs  to  multi- 
ply. His  point  of  view  of  the  prison  problem  was 
quite  the  opposite  of  theirs. 

Now,  as  I  could  have  matched  his  score  with 
cases  of  injustice,  as  my  heart,  too,  had  been 
wrung  with  pity,  when  he  realized  that  I  believed 
him  and  felt  with  him  the  last  barrier  between  us 
was  melted. 

There  were  at  that  time  few  persons  in  my 
world  who  felt  as  I  did  on  the  prison  question, 
but  in  this  heart  suddenly  opened  to  me  I  found 
many  of  my  own  thoughts  and  feelings  reflected, 

55 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

and  we  stood  as  friends  on  the  common  ground  of 
sympathy  for  suffering  humanity. 

Another  surprise  was  awaiting  me  when  I 
changed  the  subject  by  asking  Bryan  what  he 
was  reading.  It  seemed  that  his  starving  heart 
had  been  seeking  sympathy  and  companionship 
in  books.  He  had  turned  first  to  the  Greek 
philosophers,  and  in  their  philosophy  and  stoicism 
he  seemed  to  have  found  some  strength  for  en- 
durance; but  it  was  in  the  great  religious  teachers, 
those  lovers  of  the  poor,  those  pi  tiers  of  the 
oppressed,  Jesus  Christ  and  Buddha,  that  he  had 
found  what  he  was  really  seeking.  He  had  been 
reading  Renan's  "Jesus,"  also  Farrar's  "Life  of 
Christ,"  as  well  as  the  New  Testament. 

"Buddha  was  great  and  good  and  so  were  some 
of  the  other  religious  teachers,"  he  said,  "but 
Jesus  Christ  is  better  than  all  the  rest."  And 
with  that  Friend  of  the  friendless  I  left  him. 

Strange  indeed  it  seemed  how  the  criminal  life 
appeared  to  have  fallen  from  him  as  a  garment, 
and  yet  in  our  prison  administration  this  man 
stood  as  the  very  type  of  the  "incorrigible." 
What  his  course  of  action  would  have  been  had 
Bryan  been  given  his  freedom  I  should  not  care 
to  predict.  Physically  he  was  absolutely  incapa- 

56 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

ble  of  supporting  himself  honestly,  and  he  might 
have  agreed  with  another  who  said  to  me:  "Any 
man  of  self-respect  would  rather  steal  than  beg." 
There  are  those  to  whom  no  bread  is  quite  so 
bitter  as  the  bread  of  charity.  But  I  am  certain 
that  the  John  Bryan  who  revealed  himself  to  me 
in  that  last  interview  was  the  real  man,  the  man 
who  was  going  forward,  apparently  without  fear, 
to  meet  the  judgment  of  his  Maker. 

A  noted  preacher  once  said  to  me:  "Oh,  give 
up  this  prison  business.  It's  too  hard  on  you, 
too  wearing  and  depressing."  And  I  replied: 
"Not  all  the  preachers  in  the  land  could  teach 
me  spiritually  what  these  convicts  are  teaching 
me,  or  give  me  such  faith  in  the  ultimate  destiny 
of  the  human  soul."  Perhaps  my  experience  has 
been  exceptional,  but  it  was  the  older  criminals, 
the  men  who  had  sowed  their  wild  oats  and  come 
to  their  senses,  who  most  deepened  my  faith  in 
human  nature. 

I  am  glad  to  quote  in  this  connection  the  words 
of  an  experienced  warden  of  a  large  Eastern  peni- 
tentiary, who  says:  "I  have  yet  to  find  a  case 
where  I  believe  that  crime  has  been  taught  by 
older  criminals  to  younger  ones.  I  believe,  on 
the  contrary,  that  the  usual  advice  of  the  old 

57 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

criminal  to  the  boys  is:  'See  what  crime  has 
brought  me  to,  and  when  you  get  out  of  here  be- 
have yourselves." 

My  whole  study  of  "old-timers"  verifies  this 
statement;  moreover,  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
that  in  very  many  instances  the  criminal  im- 
pulses exhaust  themselves  shortly  after  the  period 
of  adolescence,  when  the  fever  of  antagonism  to 
all  restraint  has  run  its  course,  so  to  say;  and  I  be- 
lieve the  time  is  coming  when  this  branch  of  the 
subject  will  be  scientifically  studied. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  the  juvenile 
courts,  now  so  efficient  in  rescuing  the  young  of- 
fender from  the  criminal  ranks,  had  not  begun 
their  work  before  the  second  or  third  offence  had 
blotted  hope  from  the  future  of  so  many  of  the 
younger  men  in  our  penitentiaries;  for  the  indeter- 
minate sentence  under  the  board  of  pardons  has 
done  little  to  mitigate  the  fate  of  those  whose 
criminal  records  show  previous  convictions. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  dealing  with  crimes. 
But  the  time  is  at  hand  when  we  shall  deal  with 
men.* 

*  For  full  discussion  of  this  matter  the  reader  is  referred  to  "In- 
dividualism in  Punishment,"  by  M.  Salielles,  one  of  the  most  valuable 
contributions  yet  made  to  the  study  of  penology.  Also  Sir  James 
Barr's  "The  Aim  and  Scope  of  Eugenics"  demands  the  recognition 
of  the  individual  in  the  criminal. 

58 


CHAPTER  IV 

ALFRED  ALLEN  was  one  of  my  early  ac- 
quaintances among  prisoners,  having  had 
the  good  fortune  to  receive  his  sentence  on  a 
second  conviction  before  the  habitual-criminal 
act  was  in  force  in  Illinois.  Our  introduction 
happened  in  this  way:  in  one  of  my  interviews 
with  a  young  confidence  man,  who  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  state  that  he  had  always  been  studying 
how  to  sell  the  imitation  for  the  genuine,  to  get 
something  for  nothing,  my  attention  was  diverted 
by  his  suddenly  branching  off  into  a  description 
of  his  cell-mate. 

"Alfred  is  the  queerest  sort  of  a  chap,"  the  man 
began.  "He's  a  professional  burglar,  and  the 
most  innocent  fellow  I  ever  knew;  always  reading 
history  and  political  economy,  and  just  wild  to 
get  into  the  library  to  work.  He  hasn't  a  relative 
that  he  knows  and  never  has  a  visit  nor  a  letter, 
and  I  wish  you'd  ask  to  see  him." 

On  this  introduction  I  promised  to  interview 
Alfred  Allen  the  next  evening.  The  warden  al- 

59 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

lowed  me  the  privilege  of  evening  interviews  with 
prisoners,  the  time  limited  only  by  the  hour  when 
every  man  must  be  in  his  cell  for  the  night. 

It  was  an  unprecedented  event  for  Alfred  to  be 
called  out  to  see  a  visitor,  and  he  greeted  me  with 
a  broad  smile  and  two  outstretched  hands.  With 
that  first  hand-clasp  we  were  friends,  for  the  door 
of  that  starved  and  eager  heart  was  thrown  gener- 
ously open  and  all  his  soul  was  in  his  big  dark 
eyes.  I  understood  instantly  what  the  other  man 
meant  by  calling  Alfred  "innocent,"  for  a  more 
direct  and  guileless  nature  I  have  never  known. 
The  boy,  for  he  was  not  yet  twenty-one,  had  so 
many  things  to  say.  The  flood-gates  were  open 
at  last.  I  remember  his  suddenly  pausing,  then 
exclaiming:  "Why,  how  strange  this  is!  Ten 
minutes  ago  I'd  never  seen  you,  and  now  I  feel 
as  if  I'd  known  you  all  my  life." 

In  reply  to  my  inquiries  he  rapidly  sketched  the 
main  events  in  his  history.  Of  Welsh  parentage 
he  had  learned  to  read  before  he  was  five  years 
old,  when  his  mother  died.  While  yet  a  child  he 
lost  his  father,  and  when  ten  years  old,  a  homeless 
waif,  morally  and  physically  starving,  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  he  was  a  bootblack,  news- 
boy, and  sometimes  thief.  "To  get  something 

60 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

to  eat,  clothes  to  cover  me,  and  a  place  to  sleep 
was  my  only  thought;  these  things  I  must  have. 
Often  in  the  day  I  looked  for  a  place  where  the 
sun  had  warmed  the  sidewalk  beside  barrels,  and 
I'd  go  there  to  sleep  at  night." 

At  last,  when  about  thirteen  years  old,  he  found 
a  friendly,  helping  hand.  A  man  whose  boots  he 
had  blacked  several  times,  who  doubtless  sized 
up  Alfred  as  to  ability,  took  the  boy  to  his  house, 
fed  him  well,  and  clothed  him  comfortably.  Very 
anxiously  did  the  older  man,  who  must  have  felt 
Alfred's  intrinsic  honesty,  unfold  to  the  boy  the 
secret  of  his  calling  and  the  source  from  which 
he  garnered  the  money  spent  for  the  comfort  of 
the  street  waif.  And  Alfred  had  small  scruple  in 
consenting  to  aid  his  protector  by  wriggling  his 
supple  young  body  through  small  apertures  into 
buildings  which  he  had  no  right  to  enter.  And 
so  he  was  drifted  into  the  lucrative  business  of 
store  burglary.*  After  the  strain  and  stress  and 
desperate  scramble  for  existence  of  the  lonely 
child,  one  can  imagine  how  easily  he  embraced 
this  new  vocation.  It  was  a  kind  of  life,  too, 
which  had  its  fascination  for  his  adventurous 
spirit;  it  even  enabled  him  to  indulge  in  what  was 

*  Alfred  never  entered  private  houses. 

61 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

to  him  the  greatest  of  luxuries,  the  luxury  of 
giving.  His  own  hardships  had  made  him  keenly 
sensitive  to  the  suffering  of  others.  But  Alfred 
was  not  of  the  stuff  from  which  successful  crimi- 
nals are  made,  for  at  eighteen  he  was  in  prison 
for  the  second  time  and  was  classed  with  the  in- 
corrigible. 

It  was  during  this  last  imprisonment  that 
thought  and  study  had  developed  his  dominant 
trait  of  generosity  into  a  broader  altruism.  He 
now  realized  that  he  could  serve  humanity  better 
than  by  stealing  money  to  give  away.  He  was 
studying  the  conditions  of  the  working  and  of 
the  criminal  classes,  the  needs  of  the  side  of  so- 
ciety from  which  he  was  an  outgrowth.  The 
starting-point  of  this  change  was  an  Englishman's 
report  of  a  visit  to  this  country  as  "A  place  where 
each  lived  for  the  good  of  all."  (?)  "When  I  read 
that,"  said  Alfred,  "I  stopped  and  asked  myself: 
'Have  I  been  living  for  the  good  of  all?'  And  I 
saw  how  I  had  been  an  enemy  to  society,  and  that 
I  must  start  again  in  the  opposite  direction."  It 
was  not  the  cruelty  of  social  conditions  which  he 
accused  for  his  past.  His  good  Welsh  conscience 
came  bravely  forward  and  convicted  him  of  his 
own  share  in  social  wrong-doing.  "Now  that  I'm 

62 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

going  to  be  a  good  man,"  Alfred  continued,  "I 
suppose  I  must  be  a  Christian" — reversing  the 
usual  order  of  "conversion" — "and  so  I've  been 
studying  religion  also  lately.  I've  been  hard  at 
work  trying  to  understand  the  Trinity."  Alfred 
did  not  undertake  things  by  halves. 

I  advised  him  not  to  bother  with  theology, 
but  to  content  himself  with  the  clear  and  simple 
working  principles  of  Christianity,  which  would 
really  count  for  something  in  his  future  battle 
with  life. 

When  we  touched  upon  books  I  was  surprised 
to  find  this  boy  perfectly  at  home  with  his 
Thackeray  and  his  Scott,  and  far  more  deeply 
read  in  history  and  political  economy  than  I.  He 
said  that  he  had  always  read,  as  a  newsboy  at 
news-stands,  at  mission  reading-rooms,  wherever 
he  could  lay  his  hands  on  a  book.  He  talked 
fluently,  picturesquely,  with  absolute  freedom 
from  self-consciousness. 

In  Alfred's  physiognomy — his  photograph  lies 
before  me — there  was  no  trace  of  the  so-called 
criminal  type;  his  face  was  distinctively  that  of 
the  student,  the  thinker,  the  enthusiast.  His  fate 
seemed  such  a  cruel  waste  of  a  piece  of  humanity 
of  fine  fibre,  with  a  brain  that  would  have  made 

63 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

a  brilliant  record  in  any  university.  But  the 
moral  and  physical  deprivations  from  which  his 
boyhood  suffered  had  wrought  havoc  with  his 
health  and  undermined  his  constitution. 

This  November  interview  resulted  immediately 
in  a  correspondence,  limited  on  Alfred's  side  to 
the  rule  allowing  convicts  to  write  but  one  let- 
ter a  month.  On  my  part,  the  letters  were  more 
frequent,  and  magazines  for  the  Sundays  were 
regularly  sent.  Alfred  was  a  novice  in  corre- 
spondence, probably  not  having  written  fifty 
letters  hi  his  life.  I  was  surprised  at  the  high 
average  of  his  spelling  and  the  uniform  excellency 
of  his  handwriting.  In  order  to  make  the  most 
of  the  allotted  one  leaf  of  foolscap  paper  he  left  no 
margins  and  soon  evolved  a  small,  upright  writ- 
ing, clear  and  almost  as  fine  as  magazine  type. 

In  using  Alfred's  letters  I  wish  I  might  impart 
to  others  the  power  to  read  between  the  lines  that 
was  given  me  through  my  acquaintance  with  the 
writer.  I  could  hear  the  ring  in  his  voice  and  often 
divine  the  thought  greater  than  the  word.  But 
in  letting  him  speak  for  himself  he  will  at  least 
have  the  advantage  of  coming  directly  in  contact 
with  the  mind  of  the  reader.  The  first  extracts 
are  taken  from  one  of  his  earliest  letters. 

64 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

"MY  DEAR  FRIEND: 

"On  coming  back  to  my  cell  the  day  after 
Christmas,  I  saw  a  letter,  a  magazine  and  a  book 
lying  on  my  bed.  I  knew  from  the  handwriting 
that  they  came  from  you.  After  looking  at  my 
present  and  reading  the  sunshiny  letter  I  tried 
to  eat  my  dinner.  But  there  was  a  lump  in  my 
throat  that  would  not  let  me  eat,  and  before  I 
knew  what  was  up  I  was  crying  over  my  dear 
friend's  remembrance.  I  was  once  at  a  Mission 
Christmas  tree  where  I  received  a  box  of  candy. 
But  yours  was  my  first  individual  gift.  It  is 
said  that  the  three  most  beautiful  words  hi  the 
English  language  are  Mother,  Home  and  Heaven. 
I  have  never  known  any  of  them.  My  first  re- 
membrance is  of  being  in  a  room  with  the  dead 
body  of  my  mother.  All  my  life  it  seems  as  if 
everybody  I  knew  belonged  to  some  one;  they  had 
mother,  brother,  sister,  some  one.  But  I  belonged 
to  no  one,  and  I  never  could  repress  the  longing  in 
my  heart  to  belong  to  somebody.  I  have  my  God, 
but  a  human  heart  cannot  help  longing  for  human 
as  well  as  divine  sympathy." 

In  a  similar  vein  in  another  letter  he  writes: 
"I've  sometimes  wondered  if  I  should  have 
65 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

been  a  different  boy  if  circumstances  in  my  child- 
hood had  been  better.  I  have  seen  little  but 
misery  in  life.  In  prison  and  out  it  has  been  my 
fate  to  belong  to  the  class  that  gets  pushed  to  the 
wall.  I  have  walked  the  streets  of  Chicago  to 
keep  myself  from  freezing  to  death.  I  have  slept 
on  the  ground  with  the  rain  pouring  down  upon 
me.  For  two  years  I  did  not  know  what  bed  was, 
while  more  than  once  I  have  only  broken  the  fast 
of  two  or  three  days  through  the  kindness  of  a 
gambler  or  a  thief.  This  was  before  I  had  taken 
to  criminal  life  as  a  business.  .  .  .  Still  when  I 
think  it  over  I  don't  see  how  I  could  have  kept  in 
that  criminal  life.  I  remember  the  man  who 
taught  me  burglary  as  a  fine  art  told  me  I  would 
never  make  a  good  burglar  because  I  was  too  quick 
to  feel  for  others." 

Only  once  again  did  Alfred  refer  to  the  bitter 
experiences  of  his  childhood  and  that  was  in 
a  conversation.  He  had  many  other  things  to 
write  about,  and  his  mind  was  filled  with  the 
present  and  the  future.  Four  years  of  evenings 
in  a  cell  in  a  prison  with  a  good  library  give  one  a 
chance  to  read  and  think,  although  an  ill-lighted, 
non-ventilated  four-by-seven  cell,  after  a  day  of 
exhausting  work,  is  not  conducive  to  intellectual 

66 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

activity.  The  godsend  this  prison  library  was  to 
Alfred  is  evident  through  his  letters. 

"All  my  life,"  he  writes,  "I  have  had  a  burning 
desire  to  study  and  educate  myself,  and  I  do  not 
believe  that  a  day  has  passed  when  I  have  not 
gone  a  little  higher.  Some  time  ago  I  determined 
to  read  a  chapter  in  the  new  testament  every 
night,  though  I  expected  it  would  be  tedious. 
But  behold !  The  first  thing  I  knew  I  was  so  in- 
terested that  I  was  reading  four  or  five  chapters 
every  night.  The  Chaplain  gave  me  a  splendid 
speller  and  I'm  going  to  study  hard  until  I  know 
every  word  in  it." 

Proof  that  Alfred  was  a  genuine  book-lover  runs 
through  many  of  his  letters.  He  tells  me: 

"Much  as  I  hate  this  place  if  I  could  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  library  from  the  shop  I  should  be 
the  happiest  boy  in  the  State.  I'd  be  willing  to 
stay  an  additional  year  in  the  prison.  Twice 
when  they  needed  an  extra  man  in  the  library 
they  sent  me.  It  was  a  joy  just  to  handle  the 
books  and  to  read  their  titles  and  I  felt  as  if  they 
knew  that  I  loved  them.  .  .  .  Thank  you  for  the 
Scribner  Magazine.  But  the  leaves  were  uncut. 
I  want  all  the  help  and  friendship  you  can  spare 
me.  I  am  glad  to  have  any  magazine  you  are 

67 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

through  with.  But  you  must  not  buy  new  ones 
just  for  me.  The  Eclectic  and  Harpers  were  most 
welcome.  Man  versus  the  State  was  a  splendid 
article,  also,  Education  as  a  Factor  in  Prison  Re- 
form, and  Prof.  Ely  on  the  Railroad  Problem. 
The  magazines  you  send  will  do  yoeman  service 
they  are  passed  on  to  every  man  my  cell-mate  or 
I  know."  * 

Alfred  was  devoted  to  the  writings  of  John 
Draper  and  devoured  everything  within  his  reach 
on  sociology,  especially  everything  relating  to  the 
labor  problems.  He  had  theories  of  his  own  on 
many  lines  of  public  welfare,  but  no  taint  of  an- 
archy or  class  hatred  distorts  his  ideals  of  justice 
for  all.  He  always  advocates  constructive  rather 
than  destructive  measures. 

Occasionally  Alfred  refers  to  the  poets.  He 
enjoys  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  and  Lowell  is  an 
especial  favorite;  while  delighting  in  the  "Biglow 
Papers, "  he  quotes  with  appreciation  from  Lowell's 
more  serious  poetry.  The  companionship  of 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  and  Scott  brightened  and 
mellowed  many  dark,  hard  hours  for  Alfred. 
"Sir  Walter  Scott's  novels  broke  my  taste  for 

*  Mrs.  Burnett's  charming  little  story,  "  Editha's  Burglar,"  went 
the  rounds  among  the  burglars  in  the  prison  till  it  was  worn  to 
shreds. 

68 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

trashy  stuff,"  he  writes.  Naturally,  Victor  Hugo's 
"Les  Miserables"  absorbed  and  thrilled  him. 
"Shall  I  ever  forget  Jean  Valjean,  the  galley 
slave;  or  Cosette?  While  reading  the  story  I 
thought  such  a  character  as  the  Bishop  impossible. 
I  was  mistaken."  Of  Charles  Reade  he  says: 
"One  cannot  help  loving  Reade.  He  has  such  a 
dashing,  rollicking  style.  And  then  he  hardly 
ever  wrote  except  to  denounce  some  wrong  or 
sham."  Even  in  fiction  his  preference  follows  the 
trend  of  his  burning  love  and  pity  for  the  desolate 
and  oppressed.  How  he  would  have  worshipped 
Tolstoi ! 

Complaint  or  criticism  of  the  hardships  of 
convict  life  forms  small  part  of  the  thirty  letters 
written  me  by  Alfred  while  in  prison.  He  takes 
this  stand:  "I  ought  not  to  complain  because  I 
brought  this  punishment  upon  myself."  "I  am 
almost  glad  if  anyone  does  wrong  to  me  because 
I  feel  that  it  helps  balance  my  account  for  the 
wrongs  I  have  done  others."  Shall  we  never 
escape  from  that  terrible  idea  of  the  moral  ne- 
cessity of  expiation,  even  at  the  cost  of  an- 
other ? 

Nevertheless,  Alfred  feels  the  hardships  he  en- 
dures and  knows  how  to  present  them.  And  he 

69 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

is  not  "speaking  for  the  gallery"  but  to  his  one 
friend  when  he  writes: 

"Try  to  imagine  yourself  working  all  day  on  a 
stool,  not  allowed  to  stand  even  when  your  work 
can  be  better  done  that  way.  If  you  hear  a  noise 
you  must  not  look  up.  You  are  within  two  feet 
of  a  companion  but  you  must  not  speak.  You 
sit  on  your  stool  all  day  long  and  work.  Nothing 
but  work.  Outside  my  mind  was  a  pleasure  to 
me,  in  here  it  is  a  torture.  It  seems  as  if  the  min- 
utes were  hours,  the  hours  days,  the  days  cen- 
turies. A  man  in  prison  is  supposed  to  be  a 
machine.  So  long  as  he  does  ten  hours'  work  a 
day — don't  smile,  don't  talk,  don't  look  up  from 
his  work,  does  work  enough  to  suit  the  contractors 
and  does  it  well  and  obeys  the  long  number  of 
unwritten  rules  he  is  all  right.  The  trouble  with 
the  convicts  is  that  they  can't  get  it  out  of  their 
heads  that  they  are  human  beings  and  not  ma- 
chines. The  present  system  may  be  good  states- 
manship. It  is  bad  Christianity.  But  I  doubt 
if  it  is  good  statesmanship  to  maintain  a  system 
that  makes  so  many  men  kill  themselves,  go 
crazy,  or  if  they  do  get  out  of  the  Shadow  alive 
go  out  hating  the  State  and  their  fellowmen.  As 
a  convict  said  to  me,  'Its  funny  that  in  this  age 

70 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  enlightenment  they  have  not  found  out  that  to 
brutalize  a  man  will  never  reform  him.  I  have 
not  been  led  to  reform  by  prison  life.  It  has 
made  me  more  bitter  at  times  than  I  thought  I 
ever  could  be.  One  cannot  live  in  a  prison  with- 
out seeing  and  hearing  things  to  make  one's 
blood  boil.  .  .  .' 

"Times  come  to  me  here  when  it  seems  as  if  I 
could  not  stand  the  strain  any  longer.  Then 
again,  even  in  this  horrid  old  shop  I  have  some 
very  happy  times,  thinking  of  your  friendship 
and  building  castles  in  the  air.  My  favorite  air 
castle  is  built  on  the  hope  that  when  my  time  is 
out  I  can  get  into  a  printing  office  and  in  time 
work  up  to  be  an  editor.  And  perhaps  do  a  little 
something  to  help  the  poor  and  to  aid  the  cause 
of  progress.  Shall  I  succeed  in  my  dream?  Do 
we  ever  realize  our  ideals?" 

"  I  wonder  if  ever  a  sculptor  wrought 

Till  the  cold  stone  warmed  to  his  ardent  heart; 
Or  if  ever  a  painter  with  light  and  shade 
The  dream  of  his  inmost  heart  portrayed." 

"I  did  have  doubts  as  to  whether  Spring  was 
really  here  till  the  violets  came  in  your  letter. 
Now  I  am  no  longer  an  unbeliever.  I  am  afraid 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

that  I  love  all  beautiful  things  too  much  for  my 
own  comfort.  If  a  convict  cares  for  beauty  that 
sensitiveness  can  only  give  him  pain  while  in 
prison.  I  love  music  and  at  times  I  have  feel- 
ings that  it  seems  to  me  can  only  be  expressed 
through  music;  and  I  hope  I  shall  be  able  to  take 
piano  lessons  some  time." 

I  discovered  later  that  there  was  a  strain  of  the 
old  Welsh  minstrel  in  Alfred's  blood,  but  small 
prospect  there  was  at  that  time  of  his  ever  real- 
izing the  hope  of  studying  music.  For  all  this 
while  the  boy  was  steadily  breaking  down  under 
the  strain  of  convict  life,  the  "nothing  but  work" 
on  a  stool  for  ten  hours  a  day  on  the  shoe  con- 
tract. Physical  exhaustion  was  evident  in  the 
handwriting  of  the  shorter  letters  in  which  he 
tells  me  of  nature's  revolt  against  the  prison  diet, 
and  how  night  after  night  he  "dreams  of  things 
to  eat."  "I  sometimes  believe  I  am  really  starv- 
ing to  death,"  he  writes.  But  the  trouble  was 
not  so  much  the  prison  food  as  that  the  boy  was 
ill. 

I  went  to  see  him  at  about  this  time  and  was 
startled  by  the  gaunt  and  famished  face,  the  ap- 
peal of  the  hungry  eyes  that  looked  into  mine. 
I  felt  as  if  starvation  had  thrust  its  fangs  into  my 

72 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

own  body,  and  all  through  the  night,  whether 
dreaming  or  awake,  that  horror  held  me.  For- 
tunately: for  well  I  knew  there  would  be  no  rest 
for  me  until  forces  were  set  in  motion  to  bring 
about  a  change  for  the  better  in  Alfred. 

In  the  general  routine  of  prison  life,  if  the  prison 
doctor  pronounces  a  convict  able  to  work  the 
convict  must  either  work  or  be  punished  until  he 

consents  to  work;  or ?  In  the  case  of  Alfred 

or  in  any  case  I  should  not  presume  to  assign  in- 
dividual responsibility,  but  as  soon  as  the  case 
was  laid  before  the  warden  Alfred  was  given 
change  of  work  and  put  on  special  diet  with  most 
favorable  results  as  to  health. 

Alfred's  imprisonment  lasted  about  two  years 
after  I  first  met  him,  this  break  in  health  occurring 
in  the  second  year.  As  the  day  of  release  drew 
near  his  hopes  flamed  high,  breaking  into  words 
in  his  last  letter. 

"Next  month  I  shall  be  a  free  man !  Think  of 
it!  A  free  man.  Free  to  do  everything  that  is 
right,  free  to  walk  where  I  please  on  God's  green 
earth,  free  to  breathe  the  pure  air,  and  to  help  the 
cause  of  social  progress  instead  of  retarding  it  as 
I  have  done." 

Now,  I  had  hi  Chicago  a  Heaven-sent  friend 
73 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

whose  heart  and  hand  were  always  open  to  the 
needs  of  my  prisoners,  indeed  to  the  needs  of  all 
humanity.  This  friend  was  a  Welsh  preacher. 
He  called  upon  me  in  Chicago  one  November 
afternoon  when  I  had  just  returned  from  a  visit 
to  the  penitentiary.  I  was  tingling  with  interest 
in  the  Welsh  prisoner  whom  I  had  met  for  the 
first  time  the  evening  before.  Sure  of  my  listener's 
sympathy  I  gave  myself  free  rein  hi  relating  the 
impression  that  Alfred  made  upon  me.  I  felt  as 
if  I  had  clasped  the  hand  of  Providence  itself — 
and  had  I  not? — when  my  friend  said: 

"Your  Welsh  boy  is  a  fellow  countryman  of 
mine.  If  you  will  send  him  to  me  when  released 
I  think  I  can  open  a  way  for  him."  This  prospect 
of  a  good  start  in  freedom  was  invaluable  to  Al- 
fred, giving  courage  for  endurance  and  a  moral 
incentive  for  the  rest  of  his  prison  term. 

Every  man  when  released  from  prison  in  my 
State  is  given  a  return  ticket  to  the  place  from 
which  he  was  sent,  ten  dollars  in  cash,  and  a  suit 
of  clothing.  These  suits  are  convict-made,  and 
while  not  distinctive  to  the  ordinary  observer, 
they  are  instantly  recognizable  to  the  police  all 
over  the  State.  Half-worn  suits  I  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  obtaining  through  my  own  circle  of 

74 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

friends.  So  when  Alfred's  day  of  freedom  came  a 
good  outfit  of  business  clothing  was  awaiting  him 
and  before  evening  no  outward  trace  of  his  con- 
vict experience  remained. 

According  to  previous  arrangement  Alfred  went 
directly  to  the  Welsh  preacher.  This  minister 
was  more  than  true  to  his  promise,  for  he  enter- 
tained the  boy  at  his  own  home  over  night,  then 
sent  him  up  to  a  small  school  settlement  in  an 
adjoining  State  where  employment  and  a  home  for 
the  winter  had  been  secured,  the  employer  know- 
ing Alfred's  story. 

And  there  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  Alfred 
had  some  of  the  right  good  times  that  seem  the 
natural  birthright  of  youth  in  America.  Here  is 
his  own  account: 

"I  had  a  splendid  time  Thanksgiving.  All  the 
valley  assembled  in  the  little  chapel,  every  one 
bringing  baskets  of  things  to  eat.  There  were 
chickens,  geese  and  the  never-forgotten  turkey, 
pies  of  every  variety  of  good  things  known  to 
mortal  man.  In  the  evening  we  boys  and  girls 
filled  two  sleighs  full  of  ourselves  and  went  for  a 
sleigh-ride.  You  could  have  heard  our  laughing 
and  singing  two  miles  off.  We  came  back  to  the 
school  house  where  apples,  nuts,  and  candy  were 

75 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

passed  round,  and  bed  time  that  night  was  twelve 
o'clock." 

It  was  not  the  good  times  that  counted  so  much 
to  Alfred  as  the  chance  for  education.  He  began 
school  at  once,  and  outside  of  school  hours  he 
worked  hard,  not  only  for  his  board  but  picking 
up  odd  jobs  in  the  neighborhood  by  which  he 
could  earn  money  for  personal  expenses.  He 
carried  in  his  vest  pocket  lists  of  words  to  be 
memorized  while  working,  and  still  wished  "that 
one  did  not  have  to  sleep  but  could  study  all 
night."  The  moral  influences  were  all  healthful 
as  could  be.  The  people  among  whom  he  lived 
were  industrious,  intelligent,  and  high-minded. 
Among  his  studies  that  winter  was  a  course  in 
Shakespeare,  and  the  whole  mental  atmosphere 
was  most  stimulating.  Within  a  few  months  a 
chance  to  work  in  a  printing-office  was  eagerly 
accepted  and  it  really  seemed  as  it  some  of  his 
dreams  might  come  true.  But  while  the  waves 
on  the  surface  of  life  were  sparkling,  beneath 
was  the  perilous  undertow  of  disease.  Symptoms 
of  tuberculosis  appeared,  work  in  the  printing- 
office  had  to  be  abandoned  after  a  few  weeks, 
and  Alfred's  doctor  advised  him  to  work  his  way 
toward  the  South  before  cold  weather  set  in;  as 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

another  severe  Northern  winter  would  probably 
be  fatal.  After  consultation  with  his  friends  this 
course  was  decided  upon;  and,  confident  in  the 
faith  that  he  could  surely  find  transient  work 
with  farmers  along  the  line,  he  fared  forth  toward 
the  South,  little  dreaming  of  the  test  of  moral 
fibre  and  good  resolutions  that  lay  before  him. 
The  child  had  sought  refuge  from  destitution  in 
criminal  life  from  which  his  soul  had  early  re- 
volted; but  the  man  was  now  to  encounter  the 
desperate  struggle  of  manhood  for  a  foothold  in 
honest  living. 

For  the  first  month  all  went  fairly  well,  then 
began  hard  luck  both  in  small  towns  and  the 
farming  country. 

"The  farmers  have  suffered  two  bad  seasons; 
there  seems  to  be  no  money,  and  there's  hardly  a 
farm  unmortgaged,"  he  wrote  me,  and  then: 
"  When  I  had  used  the  last  penny  of  my  earnings 
I  went  without  food  for  one  day,  when  hunger 
getting  the  best  of  me,  I  sold  some  of  my  things. 
After  that  I  got  a  weeks  work  and  was  two 
dollars  ahead.  I  aimed  for  St.  Louis,  one  hun- 
dred miles  away  and  walked  the  whole  distance. 
What  a  walk  it  was !  I  never  passed  a  town  with- 
out trying  for  work.  The  poverty  through  there 

77 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

is  amazing.  I  stuck  to  my  determination  not  to 
beg.  I  must  confess  that  I  never  had  greater 
temptation  to  go  back  to  my  old  life;  and  I  think 
if  I  can  conquer  temptation  as  I  did  that  day  when 
I  was  so  hungry  I  need  have  no  fears  for  the 
future. 

"I  reached  St.  Louis  with  five  cents  in  my 
pocket.  For  three  days  I  walked  the  streets  of 
the  City  trying  to  get  work  but  without  success. 
I  scanned  the  papers  for  advertisements  of  men 
wanted,  but  for  every  place  there  were  countless 
applicants.  My  heart  hurt  me  as  I  walked  the 
streets  to  see  men  and  women  suffering  for  the 
bare  necessaries  of  existence.  The  third  night  I 
slept  on  the  stone  steps  of  a  Baptist  Church. 
Then  I  answered  an  advertisement  for  an  extra 
gang  of  men  to  be  shipped  out  to  work  on  rail- 
road construction  somewhere  in  Arkansas.  A 
curious  crew  it  was  all  through;  half  the  men 
were  tramps  who  had  no  intention  of  working, 
several  were  well-dressed  men  who  could  find 
nothing  else  to  do,  some  were  railroad  men  who 
had  worked  at  nothing  else.  When  one  of  the 
brakesmen  found  where  we  were  bound  for  he 
said,  'That  place!  You'll  all  be  in  the  hospital 
or  dead,  in  two  months.' 

78 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

"The  second  evening  we  stopped  at  the  little 
town  where  we  now  are.  The  work  is  terrible, 
owing  to  the  swamps  and  heat.  Out  of  the  twenty 
five  who  started  only  eight  are  left.  Yesterday  I 
fainted  overcome  by  the  heat,  but  if  it  kills  me 
I  shall  stick  to  the  work  until  I  find  something 
better." 

The  work  did  not  kill  Alfred,  but  malarial  fever 
soon  turned  the  workmen's  quarters  into  a  sort 
of  camp  hospital  where  Alfred,  while  unable  to 
work,  developed  a  talent  for  nursing  those  who 
were  helpless.  His  letters  at  this  time  were  filled 
with  accounts  of  sickness  and  the  needs  of  the 
sick.  He  had  never  asked  me  for  money;  it 
seemed  to  be  almost  a  point  of  honor  among  my 
prison  friends  not  to  ask  me  for  money;  but  "if 
you  could  send  me  something  to  get  lemons  for 
some  of  the  boys  who  haven't  a  cent"  was  his 
one  appeal;  to  which  I  gladly  responded. 

Better  days  were  on  the  way,  however.  Cooler 
weather  was  at  hand,  and  during  the  winter  Al- 
fred found  in  a  lumber  mill  regular  employment, 
interrupted  occasionally  by  brief  illnesses.  On 
the  whole,  the  next  year  was  one  of  prosperity. 
Life  had  resolved  itself  into  the  simple  problem  of 
personal  independence,  and  with  a  right  good 

79 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

will  Alfred  took  hold  of  the  proposition,  deter- 
mined to  make  himself  valuable  to  his  employer. 
That  he  accomplished  this  I  have  evidence  in  a 
note  of  unqualified  recommendation  from  his 
employer. 

When  the  family  with  whom  he  had  boarded 
for  a  year  were  about  to  leave  town  he  was  offered 
the  chance  to  buy  their  small  cottage  for  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  on  monthly  payments; 
and  by  securing  a  man  and  his  wife  as  tenants 
he  was  able  to  do  this. 

"At  last,  I  am  in  my  own  house,"  he  writes  me. 
"I  went  out  on  the  piazza  to-day  and  looked  over 
the  valley  with  a  feeling  of  pride  that  I  was  under 
my  own  roof.  I  have  reserved  the  pleasant 
front  room  for  myself,  and  I  have  spent  three 
evenings  putting  up  shelves  and  ornamenting 
them  and  trying  to  make  the  room  look  pretty. 
I  shall  get  some  nice  mouldings  down  at  the  mill 
to  make  frames  for  the  pictures  you  sent  me. 
And  I'm  going  to  have  a  little  garden  and  raise 
some  vegetables." 

But  the  agreeable  sense  of  ownership  of  a  home 
and  pleasure  in  the  formation  of  social  relations 
were  invaded  by  haunting  memories  of  the  past. 
The  brighter  possibilities  opened  to  his  fancy 

80 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

seemed  but  to  emphasize  his  sense  of  isolation. 
Outward  conditions  could  not  alter  his  own  per- 
sonality or  obliterate  his  experiences.  It  was  a 
dark  hour  in  which  he  wrote: 

"How  wretched  it  all  is,  this  tangled  web  of 
my  life  with  its  suffering,  its  sin  and  its  retri- 
bution. It  is  with  me  still.  I  can  see  myself 
now  standing  inside  the  door  of  my  prison  cell, 
looking  up  to  the  little  loop-hole  of  a  window 
across  the  corrider,  trying  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  blue  heavens  or  of  a  star,  longing  for  pure 
air  and  sunshine,  longing  for  freedom.  .  .  . 

"Strong  as  is  my  love  for  woman,  much  as  I 
long  for  someone  to  share  my  life,  I  don't  see 
how  I  can  ever  ask  any  woman  to  take  into  her 
life  half  of  that  blackened  and  crime-stained  page 
of  my  past.  I  must  try  to  find  happiness  in  help- 
ing others." 

But  nature  was  too  much  for  Alfred.  Not 
many  months  later  he  tells  me  that  he  is  going 
to  be  married  and  that  his  sweetheart,  a  young 
widow,  "is  kind  and  motherly.  When  I  told  her 
all  of  my  past  she  said,  'And  so  you  were  afraid 
I  would  think  the  less  of  you?  Not  a  bit.  It 
only  hurts  me  to  think  of  all  you  have  been 
through.'  " 

81 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

The  happy  letters  following  this  marriage  give 
evidence  that  the  tie  of  affection  was  strong  be- 
tween the  two.  Here  we  have  a  glimpse  of  the 
early  married  days: 

"I  have  been  making  new  steps  to  our  house, 
putting  fancy  wood  work  on  the  porch  and  pre- 
paring to  paint  both  the  inside  and  the  outside  of 
the  house  next  month." — Alfred  was  night-watch 
at  the  lumber  mill. — "It  is  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon;  I  am  writing  by  an  open  window 
where  I  can  look  out  and  see  my  wife's  flowers  in 
the  garden.  I  can  look  across  the  valley  to  the 
ridge  of  trees  beyond,  while  the  breeze  comes  in 
bringing  the  scent  of  the  pines.  Out  in  the  kitchen 
I  can  hear  my  wife  singing  as  she  makes  some 
cake  for  our  supper.  But  my  old  ambition  to 
own  a  printing  office  has  not  left  me.  I  am  still 
looking  forward  to  that." 

Just  here  I  should  like  to  say:  "And  they  lived 
happy  ever  after."  But  life  is  not  a  fairy-story; 
to  many  it  seems  but  a  crucible  through  which 
the  soul  is  passed.  But  the  vicissitudes  that  fol- 
lowed in  Alfred's  few  remaining  years  were  those 
of  the  common  lot.  In  almost  every  letter  there 
were  indications  of  failing  health,  causing  fre- 
quent loss  of  time  in  work.  Three  years  after 

82 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

his  marriage,  in  the  joy  of  fatherhood,  Alfred 
writes  me  of  the  baby,  of  his  cunning  ways  and 
general  dearness;  and  of  what  he  did  when  ar- 
rayed in  some  little  things  I  had  sent  him.  Then, 
when  the  child  was  a  year  old  came  an  anxious 
letter  telling  of  Baby  Alfred's  illness,  and  then: 

"My  DEAR  FRIEND: 
"My  baby  is  dead.    He  died  last  night. 

"ALFRED." 

This  tearing  of  the  heart-strings  was  a  new  kind 
of  suffering,  more  acute  than  any  caused  by  per- 
sonal hardship.  Wrapped  in  grief  he  writes  me: 
"To  think  of  those  words,  'My  baby's  grave.'  I 
knew  I  loved  him  dearly,  but  how  dearly  I  did 
not  know  until  he  was  taken  away.  It  isn't  the 
same  world  since  he  died.  Poor  little  dear! 
The  day  after  he  was  taken  sick  he  looked  up  in 
my  face  and  crowed  to  me  and  clapped  his  little 
hands  and  called  me  'da-da,'  for  the  last  time. 
Oh !  my  God !  how  it  hurts  me.  It  seems  at 
times  as  though  my  heart  must  break.  .  .  . 

"Since  the  baby  died  night  watching  at  the 
lumber  mill  has  become  torture  to  me.  In  the 
long  hours  of  the  night  my  baby's  face  comes  be- 

83 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

fore  me  with  such  vividness  that  it  is  anguish  to 
think  of  it." 

The  end  of  it  all  was  not  far  off;  from  the  long 
illness  that  followed  Alfred  did  not  recover,  though 
working  when  able  to  stand;  the  wife,  too,  had 
an  Illness,  and  the  need  of  earnings  was  impera- 
tive. Alfred  writes  despairingly  of  his  unfulfilled 
dreams,  and  adds:  "I  seem  to  have  succeeded 
only  in  reforming  myself,"  but  even  in  the  last 
pencilled  scrawl  he  still  clings  to  the  hope  of  being 
able  to  work  again. 

I  can  think  of  Alfred  only  as  a  good  soldier 
through  the  battle  of  life.  As  a  child,  fighting 
desperately  for  mere  existence,  defeated  morally 
for  a  brief  period  by  defective  social  conditions; 
later  depleted  physically  through  the  inhumanity 
of  the  prison-contract  system;  then  drawing  one 
long  breath  of  happiness  and  freedom  through 
the  kindness  of  the  Welsh  preacher;  but  only  to 
plunge  into  battle  with  adverse  economic  con- 
ditions; and  all  this  time  striving  constantly 
against  the  most  relentless  of  foes,  the  disease 
which  finally  overcame  him.  His  was,  indeed,  a 
valiant  spirit. 

Of  those  who  may  study  this  picture  of  Alfred's 
life  will  it  be  the  "habitual  criminals"  who  will 

84 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

claim  the  likeness  as  their  own,  or  will  the  home- 
making,  tender-hearted  men  and  women  feel  the 
thrill  of  kinship? 

Truly  Alfred  was  one  with  all  loving  hearts 
who  are  striving  upward,  whether  in  prison  or  in 
palace. 


CHAPTER  V 

A'J  habitual  criminal  of  the  pronounced  type 
was  my  friend  Dick  Mallory.  I  have  no 
remembrance  of  our  first  meeting,  but  he  must 
have  been  thirty  years  old  at  the  time,  was  hi 
the  penitentiary  for  the  third  time,  and  serving 
a  fourteen-year  sentence.  Early  in  our  acquaint- 
ance I  asked  him  to  write  for  me  a  detailed  ac- 
count of  his  childhood  and  boyhood,  the  environ- 
ment and  influences  which  had  made  him  what  he 
was,  and  also  his  impression  of  the  various  re- 
formatories and  minor  penal  institutions  of  which 
he  had  been  an  inmate.  This  he  was  allowed  to 
do  by  special  permission,  and  the  warden  of  the 
penitentiary  gave  his  indorsement  as  to  the  gen- 
eral reliability  of  his  statements.  The  following 
brief  sketch  of  his  youth  is  summarized  from  his 
own  accounts. 

One  cannot  hold  Dick  Mallory  as  a  victim  of 
social  conditions,  neither  was  he  of  criminal 
parentage.  One  of  his  grandfathers  was  a  farmer, 
the  other  a  mechanic.  His  father  was  a  working- 

86 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

man,  his  mother  a  big-hearted  woman,  thoroughly 
kindly  and  to  the  last  devoted  to  her  son.  There 
must  have  been  some  constitutional  lack  of  moral 
fibre  in  Dick,  who  was  the  same  wayward,  un- 
manageable boy  known  to  heart-broken  mothers 
in  all  classes  of  life.  Impulsive,  generous,  with  an 
overflowing  sociability  of  disposition,  he  won  his 
way  with  convicts  and  guards  in  the  different 
penal  institutions  included  in  his  varied  experi- 
ence. I  hate  to  put  it  into  words,  but  Dick  was 
undeniably  a  thief;  and  his  career  as  a  thief  began 
very  early.  When  seven  years  of  age  he  was 
sent  to  a  parish  school,  and  there,  he  tells  me,  "A 
tough  set  of  boys  they  were,  including  myself. 
There  I  received  my  first  lessons  in  stealing. 
We  would  go  through  all  the  alley  ways  on  our 
way  to  and  from  school,  and  break  into  sheds 
and  steal  anything  we  could  sell  for  a  few  cents, 
using  the  money  to  get  into  cheap  theatres." 

This  early  lawlessness  led  to  more  serious  mis- 
demeanors until  the  boy  at  thirteen  was  sent  to 
the  reform  school.  This  reform-school  experi- 
ence— hi  the  late  seventies — afforded  the  best 
possible  culture  for  all  the  evil  in  his  nature. 
This  reform  school  was  openly  designated  a 
"hotbed  of  crime"  for  the  State.  Inevitably 

87 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Dick  left  it  a  worse  boy  than  at  his  entrance. 
Another  delinquency  soon  followed,  for  which  he 
was  sent  to  jail  for  a  month,  the  mother  hoping 
that  this  would  " teach  him  a  lesson."  "It  did. 
But  oh,  what  a  lesson.  Oh!  but  it  was  a  hard 
place  for  a  boy !  There  were  from  three  to  seven 
in  each  cell,  some  of  them  boys  younger  than  I, 
some  hardened  criminals.  We  were  herded  to- 
gether in  idleness,  learning  only  lessons  in  crime. 
In  less  than  six  months  I  was  there  a  second  time. 
Then  mother  moved  into  another  neighborhood, 
but  alas,  for  the  change.  That  same  locality  has 
turned  out  more  thieves  than  any  other  portion 
of  Chicago,  that  sin-begrimed  city.  From  the 
time  I  became  acquainted  in  that  neighborhood 
I  was  a  confirmed  thief,  and  a  constant  object  of 
suspicion  to  the  police. 

"One  evening  I  was  arrested  on  general  prin- 
ciples, taken  into  the  police  station  and  paraded 
before  the  whole  squad  of  the  police,  the  captain 
saying,  'This  is  the  notorious  Dick  Mallory,  take 
a  good  look  at  him,  and  bring  him  in  night  or 
day,  wherever  you  may  find  him.' '  This  com- 
pleted his  enmity  to  law  and  order. 

Soon  after  followed  an  experience  in  the  house 
of  correction  of  which  he  says:  "This  was  my  first 

88 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

time  there  and  a  miserable  time  it  was.  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah  in  their  palmiest  days  could  not 
hold  a  candle  to  it.  You  know  that  by  this  time 
I  was  no  spring  chicken,  but  the  place  actually 
made  me  sick;  it  was  literally  swarming  with 
vermin,  the  men  half  starved  and  half  clad." 
This  workhouse  experience  was  repeated  several 
times  and  was  regarded  afterward  as  the  lowest 
depth  of  moral  degradation  of  his  whole  career. 
"  I  did  not  try  to  obtain  work  in  these  intervals  of 
liberty,  because  I  was  arrested  every  time  I  was 
met  by  a  policeman  who  had  seen  me  before." 

Thoroughly  demoralized  Dick  Mallory  sought 
the  saloons,  at  first  for  the  sake  of  sociability, 
then  for  the  stimulant  which  gave  temporary 
zest  to  life,  until  the  habit  of  drinking  was  con- 
firmed and  led  to  more  serious  crimes. 

Perhaps  neither  our  modern  juvenile  courts 
nor  our  improved  methods  in  reform  school  and 
house  of  correction  would  have  materially  altered 
the  course  of  Dick  Mallory's  life,  although  a 
thorough  course  of  manual  training  might  have 
turned  his  destructive  tendencies  into  construct- 
ive forces  and  the  right  teaching  might  have  in- 
stilled into  him  some  principles  of  good  citizen- 
ship. Be  that  as  it  may,  the  fact  remained  that 

89 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

before  this  boy  had  reached  his  majority  his  im- 
prisonment had  become  a  social  necessity;  he  had 
become  the  very  type  against  whom  our  most 
severe  legislation  has  been  directed. 

But  this  was  not  the  Dick  Mallory  whom  I 
came  to  know  so  well  ten  years  later,  and  who  was 
for  two  years  or  more  my  guide  and  director  in 
some  of  the  best  work  I  ever  accomplished  for 
prisoners.  Strange  to  say,  this  man,  utterly  ir- 
responsible and  lawless  as  he  had  heretofore  been, 
was  a  model  prisoner.  He  fell  into  line  at  once, 
learned  his  trade  on  the  shoe  contract  rapidly, 
became  an  expert  workman,  earning  something 
like  sixty  dollars  a  year  by  extra  work.  He  was 
cheerful,  sensible,  level-headed;  and  settled  down 
to  convict  life  with  the  determination  to  make 
the  best  of  it,  and  the  most  of  the  opportunity 
to  read  and  study  evenings.  The  normal  man 
within  him  came  into  expression.  His  comparison 
between  the  house  of  correction  and  the  peniten- 
tiary was  wholly  in  favor  of  the  latter.  He  recog- 
nized the  necessity  of  a  strict  discipline  for  men 
like  himself;  he  appreciated  the  difficulties  of  the 
warden's  position  and  his  criticisms  of  the  in- 
stitutions were  confined  mostly  to  the  abuses 
inherent  in  the  contract  system.  Never  coming 

90 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

into  contact  with  the  sick  or  disabled,  himself 
blessed  with  the  irrepressible  buoyancy  of  the 
sons  of  Erin,  physically  capable  of  doing  more 
than  all  the  work  required  of  him,  his  point  of 
view  of  convict  life  and  prison  administration 
was  at  that  time  altogether  different  from  that 
of  John  Bryan.  He  plunged  into  correspondence 
with  me  with  an  ardor  that  never  flagged,  cover- 
ing every  inch  of  the  writing-paper  allotted  him, 
treasuring  every  line  of  my  letters,  and  re-reading 
them  on  the  long  Sunday  afternoons  in  his  cell. 
For  years  he  had  made  the  most  of  the  prison 
libraries.  His  reading  was  mainly  along  scientific 
lines;  Galton,  Draper,  and  Herbert  Spencer  he 
treasured  especially.  His  favorite  novel  was  M. 
Linton's  "Joshua  Davidson,"  a  striking  modern 
paraphrase  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  His  good  nature 
won  him  many  small  favors  and  privileges  from 
the  prison  guards,  and  the  time  that  I  knew  him 
as  a  prisoner  was  unquestionably  the  happiest 
period  of  his  life. 

We  always  had  some  young  prisoner  on  hand, 
whom  we  were  trying  to  rescue  from  criminal 
life.  It  was  usually  a  cell-mate  of  Dick's  with 
whom  he  had  become  thoroughly  acquainted. 
And  on  the  outside  was  Dick's  mother  always 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

ready  to  help  her  boy  set  some  other  mother's 
boy  on  his  feet.  Our  first  mutual  experiment 
along  this  line  was  in  the  beginning  somewhat 
discouraging.  The  following  extract  from  one  of 
Dick's  letters  speaks  for  itself,  not  only  of  our 
protege,  Harry,  but  of  Dick's  attitude  in  this  and 
similar  cases. 

"My  brother  wrote  me  that  Harry  had  burnt 
his  foot  and  was  unable  to  work  for  a  month, 
during  which  time  a  friend  of  mine  paid  his  board. 
On  recovering  he  went  back  to  work  for  a  few  days, 
drew  his  pay  and  left  the  city,  leaving  my  friend 
out  of  pocket.  Now  I  would  like  to  make  this 
loss  good  because  I  feel  responsible  for  Harry. 
I  have  never  lost  confidence  in  him;  and  what 
makes  me  feel  worst  of  all  is  that  I  am  unable  to 
let  him  know  that  I  am  not  angry  with  him.  I 
would  give  twenty  dollars  this  minute  if  I  knew 
where  a  letter  would  reach  him. 

"I  have  never  directly  tried  to  bring  any  man 
down  to  my  own  level,  and  if  I  never  succeed  in 
elevating  myself  much  above  my  present  level  I 
would  like  to  be  the  means  of  elevating  others." 
However,  Harry  did  not  prove  altogether  a  lost 
venture  and  Dick  was  delighted  to  receive  better 
news  of  him  later. 

92 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

We  had  better  luck  next  time  when  Ned  Tris- 
com,  a  young  cell-mate  of  Dick's,  was  released. 
Dick  had  planned  for  this  boy's  future  for  weeks, 
asking  my  assistance  in  securing  a  situation  and 
arranging  for  an  evening  school,  the  bills  guaran- 
teed by  Dick.  Our  plans  carried  even  better 
than  we  hoped.  Ned  proved  really  the  right  sort, 
and  when  I  afterward  met  him  in  Chicago  my 
impressions  more  than  confirmed  Dick's  favorable 
report.  But  Ned  was  Dick's  find,  and  Dick  must 
give  his  own  report. 

"I  want  to  thank  you  for  what  you  have  done 
for  my  friend  Ned.  He  has  written  me  every  week 
since  he  left,  and  it  does  me  good  to  know  that  he 
is  on  the  high  road  to  success.  As  soon  as  you 
begin  to  receive  news  from  your  friends  who  have 
met  him  you  will  hear  things  that  will  make  your 
heart  glad.  He  is  enthusiastic  in  his  praise  of 
Miss  Jane  Addams,  has  spent  some  evenings  at 
the  Hull  House,  and  goes  often  to  see  my  mother. 
He  is  doing  remarkably  well  with  his  work  and 
earned  twenty-four  dollars  last  week.  He  has 
no  relative  nearer  than  an  aunt,  whom  he  will 
visit  in  his  vacation.  I  never  asked  him  any- 
thing about  his  past,  and  he  never  told  me  any- 
thing. I  simply  judged  of  him  by  what  I  saw  of 

93 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

him.  I  always  thought  him  out  of  place  here 
and  now  I  wonder  how  he  ever  happened  to  get 
here." 

I  liked  Dick  for  never  having  asked  Ned  any- 
thing about  his  past.  Now  through  Dick's  in- 
terest in  the  boy  Ned  was  placed  at  once  in 
healthy  moral  environment  in  Chicago,  and  he 
was  really  a  very  interesting  and  promising  young 
man  with  exceedingly  good  manners.  He  called 
on  me  one  evening  in  Chicago  and  seemed  as 
good  as  anybody,  with  the  right  sort  of  interests, 
and  he  kept  in  correspondence  with  me  as  long  as 
I  answered  his  letters. 

Mrs.  Mallory  was  as  much  interested  in  Dick's 
philanthropic  experiments  as  I  was,  and  several 
men  fresh  from  the  penitentiary  spent  their  first 
days  of  freedom  in  the  sunshine  of  her  warm 
welcome  and  under  the  shelter  of  her  hospitable 
roof.  Thus  Dick  Mallory,  his  mother,  and  I 
formed  a  sort  of  first  aid  to  the  ex-convict  society. 

Another  of  Mallory's  proteges  was  Sam  Ellis, 
whose  criminal  sowing  of  wild  oats  appeared  to 
be  the  expression  of  a  nature  with  an  insatiable 
appetite  for  adventure.  The  adventure  of  law- 
lessness appealed  to  him  as  a  game,  the  very 
hazards  involved  luring  him  on,  as  "the  red  game 

94 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  war"  has  lured  many  a  young  man  and  the 
game  of  high  finance  has  ensnared  many  an  older 
one. 

But  Sam  Ellis  indulged  in  mental  adventures 
also — in  the  game  of  making  fiction  so  convincing 
as  to  be  accepted  as  fact,  for  Sam  was  born  a  teller 
of  stories.  Perhaps  I  ought  to  have  regarded 
Sam  as  a  plain  liar,  but  I  never  could  so  regard 
him,  for  he  frankly  discussed  this  faculty  as  he 
might  have  discussed  any  other  talent;  and  he 
told  me  that  he  found  endless  fascination  in  mak- 
ing others  believe  the  pure  fabrications  of  his 
imagination.  I  always  felt  that  as  a  writer  of 
fiction  he  would  have  found  his  true  vocation 
and  made  a  success.  He  had  a  feeling  for  litera- 
ture, too,  and  I  think  he  has  happily  expressed 
what  companions  books  may  be  to  a  prisoner  in 
the  following  extract  from  one  of  his  letters: 

"I  have  been  fairly  devouring  Seneca,  Mon- 
taigne, Saadi,  Marcus  Aurelius,  Rochefoucauld, 
Bacon,  Sir  Thomas  More,  Shelley,  Schopenhauer, 
Clodd,  Clifford,  Huxley,  Spencer,  Fiske,  Emer- 
son, Ignatius  Donnelly,  Bryan,  B.  O.  Flower,  J. 
K.  Hosmer,  and  a  host  of  lesser  lights."  Of  Emer- 
son he  says:  "We  are  friends.  It  was  a  great  rise 
for  me  and  a  terrible  come-down  for  him.  I've 

95 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

done  nothing  but  read,  think,  talk,  and  dream 
Emerson  for  two  weeks,  and  familiarity  only 
cements  our  friendship  the  stronger.  It  must 
have  taken  some  extraordinary  high  thinking  to 
create  such  pure  and  delightful  things.  He  up- 
lifts one  into  a  higher  atmosphere  and  carries  the 
thought  along  on  broad  and  liberal  lines.  In- 
stead of  making  one  look  down  into  the  gutter  to 
see  the  reflection  of  the  sky,  he  has  us  look  up 
into  the  sky  itself."  In  hours  of  depression  this 
man  sought  the  companionship  of  Marjorie 
Fleming.  Truly  he  understood  the  value  of  the 
old  advice:  "To  divert  thyself  from  a  trouble- 
some fancy  'tis  but  to  run  to  thy  bookes."  And 
to  think  of  that  dear  Pet  Marjorie  winging  her 
way  through  the  century  and  across  the  sea  to 
cheer  and  brighten  the  very  abode  of  gloom  and 
despair !  No  desire  had  this  man  to  read  detect- 
ive stories — he  lived  them — his  life  out  of  prison 
was  full  of  excitement  and  escapade.  When  sea- 
sons of  reflection  came  he  turned  to  something 
entirely  different;  and  were  not  the  forces  working 
upward  within  him  as  vital  and  active  as  the 
downward  tendencies? 

However  that  may  be,  neither  Dick  Mallory 
nor  I  succeeded  hi  getting  any  firm  grip  on  that 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

mercurial  being;  but  he  never  tried  to  impose  on 
either  of  us,  was  always  responsive  to  my  inter- 
est in  him,  and  found  a  chance  to  do  me  a  good 
turn  before  he  disappeared  from  my  horizon  in  a 
far  western  mining  district  where  doubtless  other 
adventures  awaited  him.  Dick  Mallory  always 
regarded  Sam  with  warm  affection,  and  his  clear- 
cut  personality  has  left  a  vivid  picture  in  my 
memory. 

I  find  that  Dick  Mallory  was  the  centre  from 
which  radiated  more  of  my  acquaintances  in  the 
prison  than  from  any  one  other  source.  His  mind 
was  always  on  the  alert  regarding  the  men  around 
him,  and  he  was  always  on  the  lookout  for  means 
of  helping  them.  In  one  of  our  interviews  his 
greeting  to  me  was: 

"There  are  two  Polish  boys  here  that  you  must 
see;  and  you  must  do  something  for  them." 

"Not  another  prisoner  will  I  get  acquainted 
with,  Dick,"  was  my  reply.  "I've  more  men  on 
my  list  now  than  I  can  do  justice  to.  I've  not 
time  for  another  one." 

"It  makes  no  difference  whether  you  have 
time  or  not,  these  boys  ought  to  be  out  of  here 
and  there's  nobody  to  get  them  out  but  you," 
said  Dick  in  a  tone  of  finality. 

97 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

I  saw  instantly  that  not  only  was  the  fate  of 
the  Polish  boys  involved,  but  my  standing  in  the 
opinion  of  Mallory;  for  between  us  two  was  the 
unspoken  understanding  that  we  could  count  on 
each  other,  and  Dick  knew  perfectly  well  that  I 
could  not  fail  him.  Nothing  in  all  my  prison  ex- 
perience so  warms  my  heart  as  the  thought  of 
our  Polish  boys.  Neither  of  them  was  twenty 
years  of  age;  they  were  working  boys  of  good 
general  character,  and  yet  they  were  serving  a 
fifteen-year  sentence  imposed  because  of  some 
technicality  in  an  ill-framed  law. 

My  interview  with  the  younger  of  the  boys 
was  wholly  satisfactory.  I  found  him  frank  and 
intelligent  and  ready  to  give  me  every  point  in 
his  case.  But  with  the  older  one  it  was  different; 
he  listened  in  silence  to  all  my  questions,  refusing 
any  reply.  At  last  I  said:  "You  must  answer  my 
questions  or  I  shall  not  be  able  to  do  anything 
for  you."  Then  he  turned  his  great  black  velvet 
eyes  upon  me  and  said  only:  "You  mean  to  do 
me  some  harm?"  What  a  comment  on  the  boy's 
experience  in  Chicago  courts !  He  simply  could 
not  conceive  of  a  stranger  seeking  him  with  any 
but  a  harmful  motive.  And  we  made  no  further 
progress  that  tune,  but  when  I  came  again  there 

98 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

was  welcome  in  the  black  velvet  eyes,  and  with 
the  greeting,  "I  know  now  that  you  are  my 
friend,"  he  gave  me  his  statement  and  answered 
all  my  questions. 

Now  it  seemed  impossible  that  such  a  severe 
sentence  could  have  been  passed  on  those  boys 
without  some  just  cause.  But  I  had  faith  in 
Dick  Mallory's  judgment  of  them,  and  my  own 
impressions  were  altogether  favorable;  further- 
more, my  good  friend  the  warden  was  convinced 
that  grave  injustice  had  been  done. 

It  was  two  years  before  I  had  disentangled  all 
the  threads  and  marshalled  all  my  evidence  and 
laid  the  case  before  the  governor.  The  governor 
looked  the  papers  over  carefully,  and  then  said: 

"If  I  did  all  my  work  as  thoroughly  as  this 
has  been  done  I  should  not  be  criticised  as  I  am 
now.  What  would  you  like  me  to  do  for  these 
boys?" 

Making  one  bold  dash  for  what  I  wanted  I 
answered:  "I  should  like  you  to  give  me  two 
pardons  that  I  can  take  to  the  boys  to-morrow." 

The  governor  rang  for  his  secretary,  to  whom 
he  said:  "Make  out  two  pardons  for  these  Polish 
boys."  And  ten  minutes  later,  with  the  two  par- 
dons hi  my  hand,  I  left  the  governor's  office. 

99 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  I  was  indebted  to 
Dick  Mallory  for  one  of  the  very  happiest  hours 
of  my  life. 

When  I  reached  the  prison  next  day  the  good 
news  had  preceded  me.  One  of  the  officers  met 
me  at  the  door  and  clasped  both  my  hands  in 
welcome,  saying: 

"There  isn't  an  officer  or  a  convict  in  this 
prison  who  will  not  rejoice  in  the  freedom  of  those 
boys,  and  every  convict  will  know  of  it." 

As  for  the  Polish  boys  themselves,  the  blond, 
a  dear  boy,  was  expecting  good  news;  but  the 
black  velvet  eyes  of  the  dark  one  were  bewildered 
by  the  unbelievable  good  fortune.  I  stood  at 
the  door  and  shook  hands  with  them  as  they 
entered  into  freedom,  and  afterward  received 
letters  from  both  giving  the  details  of  their  home- 
coming. And  so  the  purpose  of  Mallory  was  ac- 
complished. 

These  are  but  few  of  the  many  who  owed  a 
debt  of  gratitude  to  this  man.  Only  last  year  a 
man  now  dying  in  England,  in  one  of  his  letters  to 
me,  referred  gratefully  to  assistance  given  him  by 
Mallory  on  his  release  from  prison  many  years 
ago.  Mallory's  letters  are  all  the  record  of  a 
helping  hand.  Through  them  all  runs  the  silver 

100 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

thread  of  human  kindness,  the  traces  of  benefits 
conferred  and  efforts  made  on  behalf  of  others. 

And  what  of  Dick  Mallory's  own  life  after  his 
release  from  prison?  He  had  always  lacked  faith 
in  himself  and  in  his  future,  and  now  the  current 
of  existence  seemed  set  against  him.  He  was 
thirty-two  years  old  and  more  than  half  his  life 
had  been  spent  in  confinement,  under  restraint. 
In  his  ambition  to  earn  money  for  himself  while 
working  on  prison  contracts,  he  had  drawn  too 
heavily  on  both  physical  and  nervous  resources. 
In  his  own  words:  "I  did  not  realize  at  all  the 
physical  condition  I  was  in.  If  I  could  only  have 
gone  to  some  place  where  I  could  have  recuper- 
ated under  medical  attention !  But  no !  I  only 
wanted  to  get  to  work.  All  I  knew  was  work." 

The  hard  times  of  '93  came  on,  a  man  had  to 
take  what  work  he  could  get,  and  Mallory  could 
not  do  the  work  that  came  in  his  way.  His  mother 
died  and  the  home  was  broken  up.  He  again 
resorted  to  the  sociability  of  the  saloon,  and  with 
the  renewal  of  old  associations  and  under  the  in- 
fluences of  stimulants  the  reckless  lawlessness  of 
his  boyhood  again  broke  out  into  some  action 
that  resulted  in  a  term  in  another  prison. 

The  man  was  utterly  crushed.  His  old  criminal 
101 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

record  was  brought  to  light  and  he  found  himself 
ensnared  in  the  toils  of  his  past.  He  was  bitterly 
humiliated — he  was  in  no  position  to  earn  a  penny, 
and  no  channel  for  the  generous  impulses  still 
strong  within  him  was  now  open.  The  old  buoy- 
ancy of  his  nature  still  flickered  occasionally  from 
the  dying  embers,  but  gradually  darkened  into  a 
dull  despair  as  far  as  his  own  life  was  concerned. 
But  his  interest  hi  others  survived,  and  the  only 
favors  he  ever  asked  of  me  were  on  behalf  of 
"the  boys"  whom  he  could  no  longer  help.  He 
still  wrote  me  freely  and  his  letters  tell  their  own 
story: 

"At  one  time  in  our  friendship  I  really  believed 
that  everything  was  possible  in  my  future.  I 
never  meant  to  deceive  you —  And  when  I 
realized  my  broken  promises  my  heart  broke  too. 
I  have  never  been  the  same  man  since  and  can 
never  be  again.  I  cannot  help  looking  on  the 
dark  side  for  life  has  been  so  hard  for  me.  Ah ! 
it  is  a  hard  place  when  you  reach  the  stage 
where  the  future  seems  so  hopeless  as  it  does  to 


me." 


And  hopeless  it  truly  was;  imprisonment  and 
dissipation  had  done  their  work  and  his  death 
came  shortly  after  his  release  from  this  prison. 

102 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Since  his  life  had  proved  a  losing  game  it  was  far 
better  that  it  should  end.  But  was  not  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  right  in  his  belief  that  all  our 
moral  failures  do  not  lessen  the  value  of  our  good 
qualities  and  our  good  deeds?  The  good  that 
Mallory  did  was  positive  and  enduring;  and  surely 
his  name  should  be  written  among  those  who 
loved  their  fellow  men. 

To  me  the  very  most  cruel  stroke  in  the  fate 
of  Dick  Mallory  was  this:  that  in  the  minds  of 
many  his  history  may  seem  to  justify  the  severity 
of  legislation  against  habitual  criminals.  With 
all  his  efforts  to  save  others,  himself  he  could  not 
save — and  well  as  he  knew  the  injustice  resulting 
from  life  sentences  for  "habituals,"  the  sum  of 
his  life  counted  against  clemency  for  this  class. 


103 


CHAPTER  VI 

DICK  MALLORY  himself  was  given  the 
maximum  sentence  of  fourteen  years  for 
larceny  under  the  habitual-criminal  act;  and  he 
did  not  resent  the  sentence  in  his  own  case  be- 
cause he  found  life  in  the  penitentiary  on  the 
whole  as  satisfactory  as  it  had  been  on  the  out- 
side; and  when  I  met  him  he  had  become  deeply 
interested  in  the  other  prisoners.  But  he  resented 
the  fact  that  the  "habitual  act"  was  applied 
without  discrimination  to  any  one  convicted  of  a 
second  offence.  He  was  doing  some  study  on  his 
own  account  of  the  individual  men  called  "habit- 
uals."  I  never  understood  how  Dick  Mallory 
contrived  to  know  as  much  about  individual  con- 
victs as  he  did  know;  but  he  was  a  keen  observer 
and  quick-witted,  and  the  guards  and  foremen 
often  gave  him  bits  of  information.  He  admitted, 
however,  that  his  real  knowledge  of  the  men 
under  the  "habitual  act"  was  meagre,  and  asked 
me  to  make  some  personal  observations.  To  this 
end  he  gave  me  a  list  of  some  half-dozen  men 

104 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

whom  I  promised  to  interview,  and  in  this  way 
began  my  acquaintance  with  Peter  Belden,  an 
acquaintance  destined  to  continue  many  years 
after  Dick  Mallory  had  passed  beyond  the  reach 
of  earthly  courts. 

Peter  Belden  was  then  a  man  something  over 
thirty  years  of  age,  stunted  in  growth,  somewhat 
deaf,  with  his  right  arm  paralyzed  through  some 
accident  in  the  prison  shop.  His  hair,  eyes,  and 
complexion  were  much  of  a  color,  but  his  good, 
strong  features  expressed  intelligence.  He  wore 
the  convict  stripes,  which  had  the  effect  of  blot- 
ting individuality  throughout  the  prison. 

Notwithstanding  these  physical  disadvantages, 
a  criminal  record  and  a  lifetime  of  unfavorable 
environment,  some  inherent  force  and  manliness 
in  his  nature  made  itself  felt.  He  took  it  for 
granted  that  I  would  not  question  his  sincerity, 
neither  did  I.  He  said  nothing  of  his  own  hard- 
ships, made  no  appeal  to  my  sympathy,  but  dis- 
cussed the  habitual-criminal  act  quite  imperson- 
ally and  intelligently;  assuming  at  once  the 
attitude  of  one  ready  to  assist  me  in  any  effort 
for  the  benefit  of  the  criminal  class  to  which  he 
belonged. 

But  while  he  was  talking  about  others  I  was 
105 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

thinking  about  him,  and  when  I  inquired  what  I 
could  do  for  him  personally  he  asked  me  to  obtain 
the  warden's  permission  to  have  a  pencil  and  a 
writing-tablet  in  his  cell,  as  he  liked  to  work  at 
mathematical  problems  in  his  cell.  This  was  the 
only  favor  the  man  asked  of  me  while  he  was  in 
prison,  and  to  this  day  I  do  not  know  if  he  thought 
his  fourteen-year  sentence  was  unjust.  As  he 
was  quite  friendless,  and  neither  received  nor 
wrote  letters,  he  was  only  too  glad  to  correspond 
with  me.  I  was  surprised  on  receiving  his  first 
letter  to  find  his  left-handed  writing  regular  and 
clear,  with  only  an  occasional  slip  in  spelling  or 
in  correct  English. 

Always  interested  in  the  origin  and  in  the 
formative  influences  which  had  resulted  in  the 
criminal  life  of  these  men,  I  asked  Belden  to  write 
for  me  the  story  of  his  youth;  and  I  give  it  from 
his  own  letters,  now  before  me,  in  his  own  words 
as  far  as  possible: 

"I  have  often  thought  that  the  opportunities 
of  life  have  been  pretty  hard  with  me,  still  I 
have  tried  always  to  make  the  best  of  it.  I 
know  there  are  many  who  have  fared  worse  than 
I,  and  in  my  pity  towards  them  I  have  managed 
to  find  the  hard  side  of  life  easier  than  otherwise. 

106 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

"I  was  born  on  an  island  off  the  coast  of  En- 
gland. My  father  and  mother  were  of  Irish  de- 
scent, but  we  all  spoke  both  English  and  French, 
and  I  was  in  school  for  four  years  before  I  was 
twelve.  My  studies  were  French  and  English, 
history,  grammar  and  spelling;  but  I  put  every- 
thing aside  for  arithmetic  and  other  branches  of 
mathematics:  as  long  as  I  can  remember  I  had  a 
greedy  taste  for  figures;  I  earned  my  school  ex- 
penses by  doing  odd  jobs  for  a  farmer,  for  we 
were  very  poor.  My  father  was  a  hard  drinker 
and  there  were  fourteen  of  us  in  the  family. 
There  were  days  when  we  did  not  have  but  a 
meal  or  two,  and  some  days  when  we  had  nothing 
at  all  to  eat." 

The  boy's  mother  was  ambitious  for  his  edu- 
cation; she  had  relatives  in  one  of  our  western 
States,  and  when  Peter  was  twelve  years  old  he 
was  sent  to  this  country  with  the  understanding 
that  he  was  to  be  kept  in  school. 

"But  instead  of  going  to  school  as  I  had  ex- 
pected I  was  knocked  and  kicked  about  here  and 
everywhere.  My  cousin  would  say,  'It's  school- 
in'  ye  want  is  it?  I'll  give  ye  schoolin','  and 
her  schoolin'  was  always  given  with  a  club  or 
a  kick.  '  Learnin'  and  educatin'?  It's  too  much 

107 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 
of  thim  ye  have  already;  go  out  and  mind  the 


cow.' 


The  boy  endured  this  life  for  several  months, 
"dreading  this  cousin  so  much  that  sometimes 
I'd  stay  out  all  night,  sleeping  in  the  near-by 
woods."  Then,  in  an  hour  of  desperation,  he  de- 
cided to  run  away,  and  after  two  or  three  tem- 
porary places  where  he  worked  for  his  board  he 
drifted  into  the  lumber  regions  of  Michigan. 
There  his  ambition  for  an  education  was  gratified 
in  an  unlooked-for  and  most  curious  fashion. 

During  the  seventies  various  rumors  of  im- 
moral houses  in  connection  with  these  lumber 
regions  were  afloat,  and  later  measures  were 
taken  which  effectually  dispersed  the  inmates. 
One  of  these  houses  was  kept  by  a  college  gradu- 
ate from  the  East,  who  had  been  educated  for 
the  ministry  but  had  deflected  from  the  straight 
and  narrow  path  into  the  business  of  counter- 
feiting; in  consequence  he  spent  five  years  in 
prison  and  afterward  sought  refuge  from  his  past 
in  the  wilds  of  Michigan. 

Chance  or  fate  led  Peter  Belden,  a  boy  of  thir- 
teen, into  the  circle  of  this  man's  dominion,  where, 
strangely  enough,  the  higher  side  of  the  boy's  na- 
ture found  some  chance  of  development.  Peter 

108 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

was  given  employment  at  this  "Rossman's"  as 
caretaker  to  the  dogs  and  as  general-errand  boy. 
The  man,  Rossman,  studied  the  boy,  and  dis- 
covering his  passion  for  learning  cemented  a  bond 
between  them  by  the  promise  of  an  equivalent 
to  a  course  in  college. 

It  seemed,  indeed,  like  falling  into  the  lap  of 
good  fortune  for  Peter  to  be  clothed  and  fed 
and  given  a  room  of  his  own  "with  college  books 
on  the  shelves"  open  to  his  use  at  any  time; 
"and  there  was,  besides,  a  trunk  full  of  books- 
all  kinds  of  scientific  books." 

And  here,  to  his  heart's  content,  the  boy  revelled 
in  the  use  of  books.  Study  was  his  recreation: 
and  true  to  his  word  Rossman  gave  him  daily  in- 
struction, taking  him  through  algebra,  trigonom- 
etry, and  the  various  branches  of  higher  mathe- 
matics, not  omitting  geography  and  history  and — 
Bible  Study  every  Sunday.  Who  can  fathom  the 
heights  and  depths,  the  mysterious  complexities 
of  Rossman's  nature?  This  is  Peter's  tribute  to 
the  man: 

"I  was  with  him  for  three  years;  I  always 
thought  he  was  very  kind,  not  only  to  me  but  to 
all  the  girls  in  the  house  and  to  every  one." 

In  this  morally  outlawed  community  Peter 
109 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

grew  to  be  sixteen  years  old,  attracting  to  him 
by  some  magnetism  in  his  own  nature  the  best 
elements  in  his  unfavorable  environment.  And 
here  the  one  romance  in  his  life  occurred;  on  his 
part  at  least  it  seems  to  have  been  as  idyllic  as 
was  Paul's  feeling  for  Virginia.  The  girl,  young 
and  pretty,  was  a  voluntary  member  of  "Ross- 
man's."  She,  too,  had  a  history.  Somewhat 
strictly  reared  by  her  family,  she  had  been  placed 
in  a  convent  school,  where  she  found  the  repres- 
sion and  restraint  unbearable.  In  her  reckless 
desire  for  freedom,  taking  advantage  of  a  chance 
to  escape  from  the  convent  school,  she  found  refuge 
in  the  nearest  city,  and  while  there  was  induced 
to  join  the  Rossman  group  with  no  knowledge  of 
the  abyss  into  which  she  was  plunging.  She  was 
still  a  novice  in  this  venture  when  she  became 
interested  in  Peter  Belden,  the  young  student. 
Together  they  worked  at  problems  in  figures, 
their  talk  often  wandering  from  the  problems  in 
books  to  the  problems  of  life,  especially  their  own 
lives,  until  the  day  came  when  Peter  told  her  that 
he  could  not  live  without  her. 

Then  the  two  young  things  laid  their  plans  to 
leave  that  community,  be  honestly  married,  and 
to  work  out  the  problem  of  life  together.  How- 

no 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

ever,  this  was  not  to  be — for  death  claimed  the 
wayward  girl  and  closed  the  brief  chapter  of 
romance  in  Belden's  life.  And  the  man,  near 
sixty  years  old  now,  still  keeps  this  bit  of  spring- 
time in  his  heart,  and  "May" — so  aptly  named — 
through  the  distillation  of  time  and  the  alchemy 
of  memory  appears  to  him  now  an  angel  of  light, 
the  one  love  of  his  life. 

Other  changes  were  now  on  the  wing.  "Ross- 
man's"  was  no  longer  to  be  tolerated,  and  the 
proprietor  was  obliged  to  disband  his  group  and 
leave  that  part  of  the  country.  It  was  then 
that  the  truly  baleful  influence  of  Rossman  as- 
serted itself,  blighting  fatally  the  young  life  now 
bound  to  him  by  ties  of  gratitude  and  habit,  and 
even  turning  the  development  of  his  mathemat- 
ical gift  into  a  curse.  Forced  to  abandon  the  dis- 
reputable business  in  which  he  had  been  engaged, 
Rossman  opened  a  gambling-house  in  Chicago, 
initiating  Belden  into  all  the  ways  that  are  dark 
and  all  the  artful  dodges  practised  in  these  gam- 
bling-hells. Here  Belden's  natural  gift  for  calcu- 
lation and  combination  of  numbers,  reinforced 
by  mathematical  training,  came  into  play.  The 
fascination  of  the  game  for  its  own  sake  has  even 
crept  into  one  of  Belden's  letters  to  me,  where 

in 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

several  pages  are  devoted  to  proving  how  certain 
results  can  be  obtained  by  scientific  manipulation 
of  the  cards.  But  again  Rossman's  business  fell 
under  the  ban  of  the  law,  and  soon  after,  for  some 
overt  act  of  dishonesty,  Belden  was  sent  to  the 
penitentiary. 

A  year  later  an  ex-convict  with  power  of  re- 
sistance weakened  by  the  rigidity  of  prison  dis- 
cipline, with  no  trade,  the  ten  dollars  given  by  the 
State  invested  in  cheap  outer  clothing  to  replace 
the  suit,  recognizable  at  a  glance  by  the  police, 
which  the  State  then  bestowed  upon  the  ex-convict, 
Belden  returned  to  Chicago.  Friendless,  penniless, 
accustomed  to  live  by  his  wits,  Belden  was  soon 
"in  trouble"  again,  was  speedily  convicted  under 
the  habitual-criminal  act  and  given  the  maxi- 
mum sentence  of  fourteen  years.  Three  years  of 
this  sentence  Belden  served  after  the  beginning  of 
our  acquaintance.  He  had  met  with  the  accident 
resulting  in  the  paralysis  of  his  arm,  and  his  out- 
look was  hopeless  and  dreary.  However,  after 
the  loss  of  the  use  of  his  right  hand  he  immedi- 
ately set  to  work  learning  to  write  with  his  left 
hand,  and  this  he  speedily  accomplished.  The 
tablet  granted  by  the  warden  at  my  request  was 
soon  covered  with  abstruse  mathematical  prob- 

112 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

lems;  differential  calculus  was  of  course  meaning- 
less to  the  guards,  but  a  continuous  supply  of 
tablets  was  allowed  as  a  safe  outlet  for  a  mind  con- 
sidered "  cracked  "  on  the  subject  of  figures.  Owing 
to  his  infirmities  Belden's  prison  tasks  were  light; 
his  devotion  to  Warden  McClaughrey,  who  treated 
him  with  kindness,  kept  him  obedient  to  prison 
rules,  while  his  obliging  disposition  won  the 
friendly  regard  of  fellow  prisoners.  And  so  the 
time  drifted  by  until  his  final  release.  This  time 
he  left  the  prison  clad  in  a  well-fitting  second- 
hand suit  sent  by  a  friend.  Dick  Mallory,  who 
was  then  a  free  man,  welcomed  him  in  Chicago, 
saw  him  on  board  the  train  for  another  city  in 
which  I  had  arranged  for  his  entrance  into  a 
"home,"  and  with  hearty  good  will  speeded  his 
departure  from  criminal  ranks.  This  was  in  the 
year  1893;  from  that  day  forward  Peter  Belden 
has  lived  an  honest  life. 

The  inmates  of  the  home,  or  the  members  of 
that  family,  as  the  sainted  woman  who  established 
and  superintended  the  place  considered  these 
men,  were  expected  to  contribute  toward  the  ex- 
pense of  the  home  what  it  actually  cost  to  keep 
them.  During  the  hard  winters  of  1894  and  1895 
able-bodied  men  by  thousands  were  vainly  seeking 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

work  and  awaiting  their  turn  in  the  breadline  at 
the  end  of  a  fruitless  day,  while  Peter  Belden,  with 
his  right  arm  useless,  by  seizing  every  chance  to 
earn  small  amounts,  and  by  strictest  self-denial, 
contrived  to  meet  the  bare  needs  of  his  life.  Once 
or  twice  for  a  few  days  he  could  not  do  this,  but 
the  superintendent  of  the  home  tided  him  over 
these  breaks;  and  I  knew  from  her  that  Belden 
was  unflagging  in  his  effort  to  make  his  expenses. 
That  this  was  far  from  easy  is  shown  by  the  fol- 
lowing extract  from  a  letter  written  in  the  whiter 
of  1895: 

"I  am  in  pretty  good  health,  thank  you,  but  I 
have  had  a  hard,  hard  time.  Do  the  very  best  I 
can  I  can't  get  ahead;  yesterday  I  had  to  borrow 
a  dollar  from  the  home.  Still  I  am  pegging  away, 
day  in  and  day  out,  selling  note  paper.  I  have 
felt  like  giving  up  in  despair  many  times  these 
last  few  months.  A  something,  however,  tells  me 
to  keep  on.  You  have  kindly  asked  me  if  I  needed 
clothing.  Yes,  thank  you,  I  need  shoes  and 
stockings  and  I  haven't  money  to  buy  them. 
Now,  dear  friend,  don't  spend  any  money  in 
getting  these  things  for  me;  I  shall  be  glad  and 
thankful  for  anything  that  has  been  used  be- 
fore." 

114 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

As  financial  prosperity  gradually  returned,  mak- 
ing the  ends  meet  became  easier  to  Belden. 
Among  his  round  of  note-paper  customers  he 
established  friendly  relations  and  was  able  to 
enlarge  his  stock  of  salable  articles,  and  he  won 
the  confidence  of  two  large  concerns  that  gave  him 
goods  on  the  instalment  plan.  At  this  time  the 
superintendent  of  the  home  wrote  me: 

"I  am  deeply  interested  in  Peter  Belden,  for 
he  has  been  a  good,  honest,  industrious  man  ever 
since  he  came  to  us.  I  want  to  tell  you  that  your 
kindly  efforts  are  fully  appreciated  by  him.  He 
is  earnestly  working  up  in  a  business  way,  and 
all  who  have  anything  to  do  with  him  as  a  man 
have  confidence  in  him." 

Belden's  interests,  too,  began  to  widen  and  his 
frequent  letters  to  me  at  this  time  are  like  moving 
pictures,  giving  glimpses  of  interiors  of  various 
homes  and  of  contact  with  all  sorts  of  people — a 
sympathetic  Jewish  woman,  a  brilliant  Catholic 
bishop,  a  fake  magnetic  healer  and  spiritualistic 
fraud.  He  even  approached  the  celebrated  Dean 
Hole  at  the  conclusion  of  a  lecture  in  order  to 
secure  the  dean's  autograph,  which  he  sent  me; 
and  he  had  interesting  experiences  with  various 
other  characters.  He  was  frequently  drawn  into 

"5 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

religious  discussions,  but  firmly  held  his  ground 
that  creeds  or  lack  of  creeds  were  nothing  to  him 
so  long  as  one  was  good  and  helpful  to  others. 
This  simple  belief  was  consistent  with  his  course 
of  action.  Pity  dwelt  ever  in  his  heart,  and  I  do 
not  believe  that  he  ever  slighted  a  chance  to  give 
the  helping  hand.  He  did  not  forget  the  prisoners 
left  behind  in  the  penitentiary  where  he  had  been 
confined,  sending  them  magazines  and  letters, 
and  messages  through  me.  In  one  of  his  letters 
I  find  this  brief  incident,  so  characteristic  of  the 
man  as  I  have  known  him: 

"While  I  was  canvassing  to-day  I  saw  a  poor 
blind  dog —  It  was  a  very  pitiful  sight.  He  would 
go  here  a  little  and  there  a  little,  moving  back- 
ward and  forward.  The  poor  thing  did  not  know 
where  he  was,  for  he  was  blind  as  could  be,  and 
not  only  blind  but  lame  also.  Something  struck 
me  when  I  saw  him;  I  said  to  myself,  'I  am  crip- 
pled but  I  might  be  like  this  poor  dog  some  day; 
who  can  tell  ?  I  certainly  shall  do  what  I  can  for 
him.' 

"I  could  not  take  him  home  with  me  but  I  did 
the  next  best  thing,  for  I  took  him  from  the  pack 
of  boys  who  began  chasing  him  and  gave  him 
to  a  woman  who  was  looking  out  of  a  window 

116 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

evidently  interested  and  sympathetic;  she  prom- 
ised to  care  for  him." 

In  the  hundreds  of  letters  written  me  by  Belden 
I  do  not  find  a  line  of  condemnation  or  even  of 
harsh  criticism  of  any  one,  although  he  shares 
the  prejudice  common  to  men  of  his  class  against 
wealthy  church-members.  Not  that  he  was  en- 
vious of  their  possessions,  but,  knowing  too  well 
the  cruelty  and  the  moral  danger  of  extreme 
poverty  and  ready  to  spend  his  last  dollar  to  re- 
lieve suffering,  he  simply  could  not  conceive  how  it 
was  possible  for  a  follower  of  Christ  to  accumulate 
wealth  while  sweat-shops  and  child  labor  existed. 

At  this  period  of  Belden's  life  his  knowledge  of 
mathematics  afforded  him  great  pleasure,  and  it 
brought  him  into  prominence  in  the  newspaper 
columns  given  to  mathematical  puzzles,  where 
"Mr.  Belden"  was  quoted  as  final  authority. 
Numerous  were  the  newspaper  clippings  enclosed 
in  his  letters  to  me,  and  I  have  before  me  an 
autograph  note  to  Belden  from  the  query  editor 
of  a  prominent  paper,  in  which  he  says: 

"Your  solution  of  the  problem  is  a  most  in- 
genious and  mathematically  learned  analysis  of 
the  question  presented,  and  highly  creditable  to 
your  talent." 

117 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

This  recognition  of  superiority  in  the  realm  of 
his  natural  gift  and  passion  was  precious  indeed  to 
Belden,  but  he  was  extremely  sensitive  in  regard 
to  his  past  and  avoided  contact  and  acquaintance 
with  those  who  might  be  curious  about  it.  And 
to  be  known  as  an  inmate  of  the  home  was  to  be 
known  as  an  ex-convict. 

This  maimed,  ex-convict  life  he  must  bear  to 
the  end:  only  outside  of  that  could  he  meet  men 
as  their  equal;  and  so  he  guarded  his  incognito, 
but  not  altogether  successfully. 

Once  he  made  the  experiment  of  going  to  a 
neighboring  city  and  trying  to  make  some  com- 
mercial use  of  his  mathematics,  but  he  could  not 
gain  his  starting-point.  He  had  no  credentials 
as  teacher,  and  while  he  might  have  been  valuable 
as  an  expert  accountant  his  disadvantages  were 
too  great  to  be  overcome. 

More  and  more  frequently  as  the  years  passed 
came  allusions  to  loss  of  time  through  illness. 
His  faithful  friend,  the  superintendent  of  the 
home,  had  passed  to  her  reward,  and  the  home  as 
Belden  had  known  it  was  a  thing  of  the  past. 

Life  was  becoming  a  losing  game,  a  problem  too 
hard  to  be  solved,  when  tubercular  tendencies  of 
long  standing  developed  and  Belden  became  a 

118 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

charge  on  some  branch  of  the  anti-tuberculosis 
movement,  where  he  spent  a  summer  out  of  doors. 
Here  he  frankly  faced  the  fact  of  the  disease  that 
was  developing,  and  characteristically  read  all 
the  medical  works  on  the  subject  that  the  camp 
afforded,  determined  to  make  a  good  fight  against 
the  enemy.  He  seemed  to  find  a  sort  of  comfort 
in  bringing  himself  into  companionship  with  cer- 
tain men  of  genius  who  had  fought  the  same  foe; 
he  mentions  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  Chopin, 
and  Keats,  and,  more  hopefully,  others  who  were 
finally  victorious  over  the  disease. 

With  the  approach  of  cold  weather  it  was 
thought  best  to  send  Belden  to  a  warmer  climate; 
arrangements  were  made  accordingly,  and  he  was 
given  a  ticket  to  a  far  distant  place  where  it  was 
supposed  he  would  have  a  better  chance  of  re- 
covery. There  for  a  time  he  rallied  and  grew 
stronger,  but  only  to  face  fresh  hardships.  He 
was  physically  incapable  of  earning  a  living,  and 
it  was  not  long  before  he  became  a  public  charge 
and  was  placed  hi  an  infirmary  for  old  men; 
for  more  than  fifty  years  of  poverty  and  struggle 
with  fate  had  left  the  traces  of  a  lifetime  on  the 
worn-out  body.  But  the  "something"  which  he 
felt  told  him  to  keep  on  through  many  hardships 

119 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

does  not  desert  him  now,  and  the  old  spirit  of 
determination  to  make  the  best  of  things  holds 
out  still.  His  letters  show  much  the  same  habit 
of  observation  as  formerly;  bits  of  landscape 
gleam  like  pictures  through  some  of  his  pages, 
and  historical  associations  in  which  I  might  be 
interested  are  gathered  and  reported.  His  one 
most  vital  interest  at  present  seems  to  be  the  pro- 
duction of  this  book,  as  he  firmly  believes  that 
no  one  else  can  "speak  for  the  prisoners"  as  the 
writer. 

It  seems  that  even  Death  itself,  "who  breaks 
all  chains  and  sets  all  captives  free,"  cannot  be 
kind  to  Peter  Belden,  and  delays  coming,  through 
wearisome  days  and  more  wearisome  nights.  But 
at  last,  when  the  dark  curtain  of  life  is  lifted,  we 
can  but  trust  that  a  happier  fortune  awaits  him 
in  a  happier  country. 


1 20 


CHAPTER  VII 

AT  the  time  of  my  first  visit  to  the  peniten- 
tiary of  my  own  State  the  warden  surprised 
me  by  saying:  "Among  the  very  best  men  in  the 
prison  are  the  '  life'  men,  the  men  here  for  murder." 

How  true  this  was  I  could  not  then  realize, 
but  as  in  time  I  came  to  know  well  so  many  of 
these  men  the  words  of  the  warden  were  fully 
confirmed. 

The  law  classes  the  killing  of  one  person  by 
another  under  three  heads:  murder  in  the  first 
degree;  murder  in  the  second  degree;  and  man- 
slaughter. The  murder  deliberately  planned  and 
executed  constitutes  murder  in  the  first  degree; 
and  for  this,  in  many  of  our  States,  the  penalty 
is  still  capital  punishment;  otherwise,  legal  murder 
deliberately  planned  and  officially  executed,  the 
penalty  duplicating  the  offence  in  general  outline. 
This  is  the  popular  conception  of  fitting  the 
punishment  to  the  crime;  and  its  continuance 
ignores  the  obvious  truth  that,  so  long  as  the  law 
justifies  and  sets  the  example  of  taking  life  under 

121 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

given  circumstances,  so  long  will  the  individual 
justify  himself  in  taking  life  under  circumstances 
which  seem  to  him  to  warrant  doing  so;  the  in- 
dividual simply  takes  the  law  into  his  own  hands. 
War  and  the  death  penalty  are  the  two  most 
potent  sources  of  mental  suggestion  in  the  direc- 
tion of  murder. 

In  every  execution  within  the  walls  of  a  peni- 
tentiary the  suggestion  of  murder  is  sown  broad- 
cast among  the  other  convicts,  and  is  of  especial 
danger  to  those  mentally  unsound.  As  long  as 
capital  punishment  is  upheld  as  necessary  to  the 
protection  of  society  each  State  should  have  its 
State  executioner;  and  executions  should  take 
place  at  the  State  capital  hi  the  presence  of  the 
governor  and  as  many  legislators  as  may  be  hi 
the  city.  In  relegating  to  the  penitentiary  the 
ugly  office  of  Jack  Ketch  we  escape  the  realiza- 
tion of  what  it  all  is — how  revolting,  how  barbarous 
— and  we  throw  one  more  horror  into  the  psychic 
atmosphere  of  prison  life. 

Several  factors  have  combined  to  hold  the 
death  penalty  so  long  on  the  throne  of  justice. 
Evolution  has  not  yet  eliminated  from  the  human 
being  the  elementary  savage  instinct  of  blood- 
thirstjness,  so  frightfully  disclosed  in  the  revolt- 

122 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

ing  rush  of  the  populace  eager  to  witness  the 
public  executions  perpetrated  in  France  in  the 
present  century;  public  executions  in  defiance  of 
the  established  fact  that  men  hitherto  harmless 
have  gone  from  the  sight  of  an  execution  impelled 
to  kill  some  equally  harmless  individual. 

Many  good  men  and  women,  ignoring  the  prac- 
tical effect  of  anything  so  obscure  as  "suggestion," 
honestly  believe  that  fear  of  the  death  penalty 
has  a  restraining  influence  upon  the  criminal 
class.  In  those  States  and  countries  which  have 
had  the  courage  to  abolish  the  death  penalty  the 
soundness  of  the  "deterrent  effect"  theory  is  being 
tested;  statistics  vary  in  different  localities  but 
the  aggregate  of  general  statistics  shows  a  de- 
crease in  murders  following  the  abolition  of  the 
death  penalty. 

A  silent  partner  in  the  support  of  capital 
punishment  is  the  general  assumption  that  the 
murderer  is  a  normal  and  a  morally  responsible 
human  being.  Science  is  now  leading  us  to  a 
clearer  understanding  of  the  relation  between  the 
moral  and  the  physical  in  human  nature,  and  we 
are  beginning  to  perceive  that  complex  and  far- 
reaching  are  the  causes,  the  undercurrents,  the 
abnormal  impulses  which  come  to  the  surface 

123 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

in  the  act  of  murder.  Some  years  ago  in  England, 
upon  the  examination  of  the  brains  of  a  successive 
number  of  men  executed  for  murder,  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  eighty-five  per  cent  of  those  brains 
were  organically  diseased.  Granting  that  these 
men  were  criminally  murderers,  we  must  grant 
also  that  they  were  mentally  unsound,  themselves 
victims  of  disease  before  others  became  their 
victims.  Where  the  moral  responsibility  lies,  the 
Creator  alone  can  know;  perhaps  in  a  crowded 
room  of  a  foul  tenement  an  overworked  mother 
or  a  brutal  father  struck  a  little  boy  on  the  head, 
and  the  little  brain  went  wrong,  some  of  those 
infinitesimal  brain-cells  related  to  moral  conduct 
were  crushed,  and  years  afterward  the  effect  of 
the  cruel  blow  on  the  head  of  the  defenceless  child 
culminated  in  the  murderous  blow  from  the  hand 
of  this  child  grown  to  manhood.  And  back  of 
the  blow  given  the  child  stand  the  saloon  and  the 
sweat-shop  and  the  bitter  poverty  and  want 
which  can  change  a  human  being  into  a  brute. 
Saloons  and  sweat-shops  nourish  in  our  midst, 
and  cruel  is  the  pressure  of  poverty,  and  terrible 
in  their  results  are  the  blows  inflicted  upon  help- 
less children.  When  the  State  vigorously  sets  to 
work  to  remove  or  ameliorate  the  social  conditions 

124 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

which  cause  crime  there  will  be  fewer  lawless 
murderers  to  be  legally  murdered. 

Time  and  again  men  innocent  of  the  crime  have 
been  executed  for  murder.  Everything  is  against 
a  man  accused  of  murder.  The  simple  accusation 
antagonizes  the  public  against  the  accused  man. 
The  press,  which  loves  to  be  sensational,  joins  in 
the  prosecution,  sometimes  also  the  pulpit.  The 
tortures  of  the  sweat-box  are  resorted  to,  that  the 
accused  may  be  driven  to  convict  himself  before 
being  tried;  and  one  who  has  no  money  may  find 
himself  convicted  simply  because  he  cannot  prove 
his  innocence — although  the  law  professes  to  hold 
a  man  innocent  until  his  guilt  is  proven. 

For  years  I  was  an  advocate  of  the  death  pen- 
alty as  a  merciful  alternative  to  life  imprison- 
ment. Knowing  that  the  certainty  of  approach- 
ing death  may  effect  spiritual  awakening  and 
bring  to  the  surface  all  that  is  best  in  a  man; 
believing  that  death  is  the  great  liberator  and  the 
gateway  to  higher  things;  knowing  that  a  man 
imprisoned  for  life  may  become  mentally  and 
spiritually  deadened  by  the  hopelessness  of  his 
fate,  or  may  become  so  intent  on  palliating,  ex- 
cusing, or  justifying  his  crime  as  to  lose  all  sense 
of  guilt,  perhaps  eventually  to  believe  himself  a 

125 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

victim  rather  than  a  criminal;  knowing  the  un- 
speakable suffering  of  the  man  who  abandons 
himself  to  remorse,  and  knowing  how  often  the 
"life  man"  becomes  a  prey  to  insanity,  in  sheer 
pity  for  the  prisoner  I  came  to  regard  the  death 
penalty  as  a  merciful  means  of  escape  from  an 
incomparably  worse  fate. 

So  far  my  point  of  view  was  taken  only  in  re- 
lation to  the  prisoner  for  life.  Later,  when  I  had 
studied  the  subject  more  broadly,  in  considering 
the  effect  of  the  death  penalty  upon  the  commu- 
nity at  large  and  as  a  measure  for  the  protection 
of  society,  I  could  not  escape  the  conviction  that 
in  the  civilized  world  of  to-day  capital  punish- 
ment is  indefensible.  Christianity,  humanity, 
sociology,  medical  science,  psychology,  and  sta- 
tistics stand  solid  against  the  injustice  and  the 
unwisdom  of  capital  punishment.  Public  senti- 
ment, the  last  bulwark  of  the  death  penalty,  is 
slowly  but  surely  becoming  enlightened,  and  the 
final  victory  of  humanitarianism  is  already  as- 
sured. 

Throughout  the  United  States  the  legal  penalty 
for  murder  in  the  second  degree  is  imprisonment 
for  life;  then  follows  the  crime  called  man- 
slaughter, when  the  act  is  committed  in  self- 

126 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

defence  or  under  other  extenuating  circumstances; 
the  penalty  for  which  is  imprisonment  for  a 
varying  but  limited  term  of  years.  Practically 
there  is  no  definite  line  dividing  murder  in  the 
second  degree  from  manslaughter.  A  clever 
expert  lawyer,  whether  on  the  side  of  prosecution 
or  the  defence,  has  little  difficulty  in  carrying 
his  case  over  the  border  in  the  one  direction  or 
the  other.  Money,  and  the  social  position  of  the 
accused,  are  important  factors  in  adjusting  the 
delicate  balance  between  murder  in  the  second 
degree  and  manslaughter. 

Various  are  the  pathways  that  lead  to  the  il- 
legal taking  of  life;  terrible  often  the  pressure 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  man  before  the  deed  is 
done.  Deadly  fear,  the  fear  common  to  humanity, 
has  been  the  force  that  drove  the  hand  of  many  a 
man  to  strike,  stab,  or  shoot  with  fatal  effect; 
while  anger,  righteous  or  unrighteous,  the  momen- 
tary impulse  of  intense  emotional  excitement  to 
which  we  are  all  more  or  less  liable,  has  gathered 
its  host  of  victims  and  caused  the  tragic  ruin  of 
unnumbered  men  now  wearing  life  away  in  our 
penitentiaries. 

And  terribly  true  it  is  that  some  of  the  "life" 
men  are  among  the  best  in  our  prisons,  the  "life" 

127 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

men  who  are  all  indiscriminately  called  murderers. 
That  some  of  them  were  murderers  at  heart  and 
a  menace  to  the  community  we  cannot  doubt; 
doubtless,  also,  some  are  innocent  of  any  crime; 
and  there  are  others  for  whom  it  would  be  better 
for  all  concerned  if  they  were  given  liberty  to-day. 

It  seems  to  be  assumed  that  a  man  unjustly 
imprisoned  suffers  more  than  the  one  who  knows 
that  he  has  only  himself  to  blame.  Much  de- 
pends upon  the  nature  of  the  man.  Given  two 
men  of  equally  sound  moral  nature,  while  the 
one  with  a  clear  conscience  may  suffer  intensely, 
from  the  sense  of  outrage  and  injustice,  from  the 
tearing  of  the  heart-strings  and  the  injury  to 
business  relations,  his  mental  agony  can  hardly 
equal  that  of  the  man  whose  heart  is  eaten  out 
with  remorse.  The  best  company  any  prisoner 
can  have  is  his  own  self-respect,  the  best  asset  of 
a  bankrupt  life.  I  have  been  amazed  to  see  for 
how  much  that  counts  in  the  peace  and  hope, 
and  the  great  power  of  patience  which  makes  for 
health  and  gives  strength  for  endurance. 

I  was  deeply  impressed  with  this  fact  in  the 
case  of  one  man.  His  name  was  Gay  Bowers,  a 
name  curiously  inconsistent  with  his  fate,  and, 
"life  man"  though  he  was,  no  one  in  that  big 

128 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

prison  ever  associated  him  with  murder;  no  one 
who  really  looked  into  his  face  could  have  thought 
him  a  criminal.  It  was  the  only  face  I  ever  saw, 
outside  of  a  book,  that  seemed  chastened  through 
sorrow;  his  gentle  smile  was  like  the  faint  sunshine 
of  an  April  day  breaking  through  the  mists;  and 
there  was  about  the  man  an  atmosphere  of  youth 
and  springtime  though  he  was  near  forty  when  we 
first  met;  but  it  was  the  arrested  youth  of  a  man 
to  whom  life  seemed  to  have  ended  when  he  was 
but  twenty-two. 

Gay  was  country  born  and  bred,  loved  and 
early  married  a  country  girl,  and  was  known 
throughout  the  neighborhood  as  a  hard-working, 
steady  young  fellow.  He  lived  in  a  village  near 
the  Mississippi  River,  and  one  summer  he  went 
down  to  St.  Louis  on  some  business  and  returned 
by  boat.  On  the  steamboat  a  stranger,  a  young 
man  of  near  his  age,  made  advances  toward  ac- 
quaintance, and  hearing  his  name  exclaimed: 

"Gay  Bowers!  why  my  name  is  Ray  Bowers, 
and  I'm  looking  for  work.  I  guess  I'll  go  to  your 
town  and  we'll  call  each  other  cousins;  perhaps 
we  are  related." 

The  stranger  seemed  very  friendly  and  kept 
with  Bowers  when  they  reached  the  home  town; 

129 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

there  Ray  found  work  and  seemed  all  right  for  a 
while. 

And  here  I  must  let  Gay  Bowers  tell  the  rest 
of  the  story  as  he  told  it  to  me,  in  his  own  words  as 
nearly  as  I  can  remember  them.  I  listened  in- 
tently to  his  low,  quiet  voice,  but  I  seemed  read- 
ing the  story  in  his  eyes  at  the  same  time,  for  the 
absolutely  convincing  element  was  the  way  in 
which  Bowers  was  living  it  all  over  again  as  he 
unfolded  the  scene  with  a  certain  thrill  in  his  tones. 
I  felt  as  if  I  was  actually  witnessing  the  occur- 
rence, so  vividly  was  the  picture  in  his  mind 
transferred  to  mine. 

"My  wife  and  I  had  just  moved  into  a  new 
home  that  very  day,  we  and  our  little  year-old 
girl,  and  Ray  had  helped  us  in  the  moving  and 
stayed  to  supper  with  us.  After  supper  Ray 
said  he  must  go,  and  asked  me  to  go  a  piece  with 
him  as  he  had  something  to  say  to  me. 

"  So  I  went  along  with  him.  Back  of  the  house 
the  road  ran  quite  a  way  through  deep  woods. 
We  were  in  the  middle  of  the  woods  when  Ray 
stopped  and  told  me  what  he  wanted  of  me.  He 
told  me  that  he  had  been  a  horse-thief  over  in 
Missouri,  that  his  picture  was  in  'the  rogues' 
gallery'  in  St.  Louis  over  his  own  name,  Jones; 

130 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

that  it  wasn't  safe  for  him  to  be  in  Missouri, 
where  he  was  'wanted'  and  that  he  had  got  on 
the  boat  without  any  plans;  but  as  soon  as  he 
saw  me,  a  working,  country  man,  he  thought  he 
might  as  well  hitch  on  to  me  and  go  to  my  place. 
But  he  said  he  was  tired  of  working;  and  farmer 
Smith  had  a  fine  pair  of  horses  which  he  could 
dispose  of  if  I  would  take  them  out  of  the  barn 
into  the  next  county.  Ray  wanted  me  to  do  this 
because  of  my  good  reputation.  Everybody 
knew  me  and  I  was  safe  from  suspicion;  and  he 
said  we  could  make  a  lot  of  money  for  us  both  if 
I  went  into  the  business  with  him. 

"All  of  a  sudden  I  knew  then  that  for  some 
time  I'd  been  feeling  that  Ray  wasn't  quite  square. 
There  had  been  some  little  things — of  course  I 
said  I  wouldn't  go  in  with  him;  and  I  don't  know 
what  else  I  said  for  I  was  pretty  mad  to  find  out 
what  kind  of  a  man  he  was  and  how  he  had  fooled 
me.  Perhaps  I  threatened  to  tell  the  police; 
anyway  Ray  said  he  would  kill  me  before  I  had 
a  chance  to  give  him  away  if  I  didn't  go  into  the 
deal  with  him,  for  then  I  wouldn't  dare  'peach.' 
Still  I  refused. 

"And  then" — here  a  look  of  absolute  terror 
came  into  Bowers's  eyes — "then  he  suddenly 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

struck  me  a  terrible  blow  and  I  knew  I  was  in  a 
fight  for  my  life.  He  fought  like  the  desperate 
man  that  he  was.  I  managed  to  reach  down  and 
pick  up  a  stick  and  struck  out:  I  never  thought 
of  killing  the  man;  it  was  just  a  blind  fight  to 
defend  myself. 

"But  he  let  go  and  fell.  When  he  did  not  move 
I  bent  over  him  and  felt  for  his  heart.  I  could  not 
find  it  beating;  but  I  could  not  believe  he  was 
dead.  I  waited  for  some  sign  of  life  but  there 
was  none.  I  was  horror-struck  and  dazed;  but 
I  knew  I  could  not  leave  him  in  the  road  where 
he  had  fallen,  so  I  dragged  him  a  little  way  into 
the  woods.  There  I  left  him. 

"I  hurried  back  home  to  tell  my  wife  what  had 
happened;  but  when  I  opened  the  door  my  wife 
was  sitting  beside  the  cradle  where  the  baby  was. 
Cynthy  was  tired  and  sleepy  with  her  day's 
work,  and  everything  seemed  so  natural  and 
peaceful  I  just  couldn't  tell  her,  and  I  couldn't 
think,  or  anything.  So  I  told  her  she'd  better 
go  to  bed  while  I  went  across  the  road  to  speak 
to  her  father. 

"It  wasn't  more  than  nine  o'clock  then,  and  I 
found  her  father  sitting  alone  smoking  his  pipe. 
He  began  to  talk  about  his  farm  work.  He 

132 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

didn't  notice  anything  queer  about  me  and  I  was 
so  dazed-like  that  it  all  began  to  seem  unreal  to 
me.  I  tried  once  or  twice  to  break  into  his  talk 
and  tell  him,  but  I  couldn't  put  the  horror  into 
words — I  couldn't. 

"Perhaps  it  wouldn't  have  made  any  difference 
if  I  had  told  him;  anyway  I  didn't.  When  the 
body  was  found  next  morning  of  course  they  came 
right  to  our  house  with  the  story,  for  Ray  had 
told  folks  that  he  was  a  relation  of  mine.  I  told 
just  what  had  happened  but  it  didn't  count  for 
anything — I  was  tried  for  murder  and  not  given 
a  chance  to  make  any  statement.  Because  I  was 
well  thought  of  by  my  neighbors  they  didn't  give 
me  the  rope,  but  sent  me  here  for  life." 

Bowers  had  been  sixteen  years  in  prison  when  I 
first  met  him.  He  had  accepted  his  fate  as  an  over- 
whelming misfortune,  like  blindness  or  paralysis, 
but  never  for  a  moment  had  he  lost  his  self- 
respect,  and  he  clung  to  his  religion  as  the  isle  of 
refuge  in  his  wrecked  existence. 

"Mailed  in  the  armor  of  a  pure  intent"  which 
the  degradations  of  convict  life  could  not  pene- 
trate, as  the  years  passed  he  had  achieved  true 
serenity  of  spirit,  and  that  no  doubt  contributed 
to  his  apparently  unbroken  health.  His  work  was 

133 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

not  on  contract  but  in  a  shop  where  prison  sup- 
plies were  made,  canes  for  the  officers,  etc.  One 
day  Bowers  sent  me  a  beautifully  made  cane, 
which  I  may  be  glad  to  use  if  I  ever  live  to  have 
rheumatism. 

Bowers,  like  all  life  men,  early  laid  his  plans 
for  a  pardon  and  had  a  lawyer  draw  up  a  petition; 
but  the  difficulty  in  the  case  was  that  there  wasn't 
a  particle  of  evidence  against  the  dead  man  ex- 
cepting Bowers's  own  word.  But  Bowers's  mind 
was  set  on  establishing  the  truth  of  his  statement 
regarding  the  character  of  the  other  man,  and  he 
saw  only  one  way  of  doing  this.  Ray  had  said 
that  his  real  name  was  Jones,  and  his  photograph 
was  in  the  rogues'  gallery  in  St.  Louis  under 
the  name  of  Jones.  Now,  if  there  was  such  a 
photograph  in  St.  Louis  Bowers  determined  to 
get  it,  and  at  last,  after  ten  years,  he  obtained 
possession  of  the  photograph,  with  the  help  of  a 
lawyer,  and  again  he  looked  upon  the  face  of 
Ray,  named  Jones,  with  the  record  "horse- thief." 
The  proven  character  of  Jones  did  not  alter  the 
fact  that  he  had  been  killed  by  Bowers;  nor  in 
that  part  of  the  country  did  it  serve  as  a  reason 
for  release  of  Bowers;  and  the  years  went  on  the 
same  as  before. 

134 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Bowers's  wife  had  not  learned  to  write,  but  the 
baby,  Carrie,  grew  into  a  little  girl  and  went  to 
school,  and  she  wrote  regularly  to  her  father,  who 
was  very  proud  of  her  letters.  When  still  a  little 
girl  she  was  taken  into  a  neighbor's  family. 
After  a  time  the  neighbor's  wife  died  and  Carrie 
not  being  equal  to  the  work  of  the  house  her 
mother  came  to  help  out — so  said  Carrie's  letters. 
And  Bowers,  who  still  cherished  the  home  ties, 
was  thankful  that  his  wife  and  child  were  taken 
care  of.  Every  night  he  prayed  for  them  and 
always  he  hoped  for  the  day  when  he  could  take 
them  in  his  arms. 

His  letters  to  me  were  few  as  he  wrote  regu- 
larly to  his  daughter;  but  after  he  had  been  in 
prison  eighteen  years  he  wrote  me  the  joyful 
news  that  he  would  be  released  in  a  few  weeks, 
for  his  lawyer  had  proven  a  faithful  friend.  The 
letter  was  a  very  happy  one  written  in  December, 
and  the  warden  had  allowed  Bowers  to  tinker 
up  some  little  gifts  to  be  sent  to  the  wife  and 
daughter.  "They  stand  in  a  row  before  me  as 
I  am  writing,  and  I  think  they  are  as  beautiful  as 
butterflies,"  his  letter  said. 

On  his  release  Bowers,  now  a  man  past  forty, 
had  to  begin  life  over  again.  He  had  lost  his 

135 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

place  in  his  community,  he  had  no  money,  but 
he  had  hope  and  ambition,  and  as  a  good  chance 
was  offered  him  in  the  penitentiary  city  he  decided 
to  take  it  and  go  right  to  work.  He  wrote  his 
daughter  that  he  would  arrange  for  her  and  her 
mother  to  come  to  him,  and  there  they  would 
start  a  new  home  together. 

Little  did  he  dream  of  the  shock  awaiting  him 
when  the  answer  to  that  letter  came,  telling  him 
that  for  several  years  his  wife  had  been  married 
to  the  man  who  had  given  Carrie  a  home.  Both 
the  man  and  the  woman  had  supposed  that  when 
Bowers  was  sent  to  prison  for  life  the  wife  was 
divorced  and  free  to  marry.  She  was  hopeless 
as  to  her  husband's  release,  and  tired  and  dis- 
couraged with  her  struggle  with  poverty.  Her 
brief  married  life  had  come  to  seem  only  a  mem- 
ory of  her  youth,  and  she  was  glad  of  the  chance 
to  be  taken  care  of  like  other  women,  but  a  feel- 
ing of  tenderness  and  pity  for  the  prisoner  had 
caused  her  to  protect  him  from  the  knowledge 
of  her  inconstancy. 

The  second  husband  felt  that  to  Bowers  must 
be  left  the  decision  as  to  the  adjustment  of  the 
tangled  relationships,  and  Bowers  wrote  me  that 
he  had  decided  that  the  second  husband  had  the 

136 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

stronger  claim,  as  he  had  married  the  woman  in 
good  faith  and  made  her  happy;  one  thing  he  in- 
sisted upon,  however — that  if  the  present  arrange- 
ment were  to  continue,  his  former  wife  must  take 
her  divorce  from  him  and  be  legally  married  to 
the  other  man.  And  this  was  done. 

To  find  himself  another  Enoch  Arden  was  a 
hard  blow  to  Bowers,  but  the  years  of  work  and 
poverty  must  have  wrought  such  changes  in  the 
girl  wife  of  long  ago  that  she  was  lost  to  him  for- 
ever; while  the  man  who  came  out  of  that  prison 
after  eighteen  years  of  patient  endurance  and  the 
spiritual  development  that  long  acquaintance  with 
grief  sometimes  brings  was  a  different  being  from 
the  light-hearted  young  farmer's  boy  that  the  girl 
had  married.  They  must  inevitably  have  become 
as  strangers  to  each  other. 

With  the  daughter  the  situation  was  different. 
From  childhood  she  had  faithfully  written  to  an 
imaginary  father  whom  she  could  not  remember, 
but  with  whom  a  real  tie  must  have  been  formed 
through  their  letters;  and  Carrie  had  now  come 
to  be  near  the  age  of  the  wife  he  had  left.  The 
daughter  was  to  come  to  him,  and  she  must  have 
found  in  the  real  father  something  even  finer  than 
her  imagination  could  have  pictured. 

137 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Gay  Bowers  had  been  a  prisoner  for  those 
eighteen  years,  with  never  a  criminal  thought  or 
intention.  As  human  courts  go  he  was  not  the 
victim  of  injustice  nor  could  "society"  be  held 
in  any  way  responsible.  There  was  no  apparent 
relation  between  his  environment  or  his  character 
and  his  tragic  experience.  It  was  like  a  Greek 
drama  where  Fate  rules  inexorable,  but  this  fate 
was  borne  with  the  spirit  of  a  Christian  saint. 
What  the  future  years  held  for  him  I  do  not  know, 
since  through  carelessness  on  my  part  our  cor- 
respondence was  not  kept  up. 


138 


CHAPTER  VIII 

IN  another  instance,  with  quite  different  threads, 
the  hand  of  fate  seemed  to  have  woven  the 
destiny  of  the  man,  but  I  was  slow  in  perceiving 
that  it  was  not  merely  the  tragedy  of  the  prison 
that  was  unfolding  before  me  but  the  wider 
drama  of  life  itself. 

Generally  speaking,  among  my  prison  acquaint- 
ance there  was  some  correspondence  between 
the  personality  of  the  man  and  his  history.  The 
prisoner  who  said  frankly  to  me,  "I  always  cheat 
a  man  when  I  can,  because  I  know  he  would 
cheat  me  if  he  had  the  chance:  'tis  diamond  cut 
diamond,"  this  man  curiously  but  logically  re- 
sembled a  fox.  And  any  one  could  see  at  a  glance 
that  Gay  Bowers  was  a  man  in  whom  was  no 
guile. 

But  no  clew  to  the  complex  nature  of  Harry 
Hastings  was  to  be  found  in  his  appearance.  We 
had  exchanged  a  number  of  letters  before  we  met. 
He  wrote  intelligently  with  but  an  occasional  slip 
in  spelling,  and  seemed  to  be  a  man  of  fair  edu- 
cation. He  was  in  prison  for  life  on  the  charge  of 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

having  shot  in  the  street  a  woman  of  the  streets; 
the  man  claimed  innocence,  but  I  never  tried  to 
unravel  the  case,  as  the  principal  witness  for  the 
defence  had  left  the  city  where  the  shooting  oc- 
curred, and  there  seemed  to  be  no  starting-point 
for  an  appeal  for  pardon.  What  the  boy  wanted 
of  me — he  was  but  little  past  twenty — was  a 
channel  through  which  he  could  reach  the  higher 
things  of  life.  Passionate  aspiration  ran  through 
all  his  letters,  aspiration  toward  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  and  the  good.  He  quoted  Emerson 
and  studied  George  Eliot — Romola,  the  woman, 
he  criticised  for  being  blinded  to  Tito's  moral 
qualities  by  his  superficial  charms.  He  had  a 
way  of  piercing  to  the  heart  of  things  and  finding 
beauty  where  many  others  would  have  missed  it. 
Music  he  loved  above  all  else;  and  in  music  his 
memory  was  haunted  by  "The  Coulin" — a  wild, 
despairing  cry  of  downtrodden  Ireland,  an  air 
in  which,  some  one  has  said,  "Ireland  gathered 
up  her  centuries  of  oppression  and  flung  it  to  the 
world  in  those  heart-breaking  strains."  It  hap- 
pened that  I  had  never  heard  "The  Coulin"  ex- 
cept under  my  own  fingers,  and  it  struck  me  as  a 
curious  bit  of  the  boy's  make-up  that  this  tragic 
music  had  become  part  of  his  mental  endowment. 

140 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

He  had  heard  it  but  once,  played  by  a  German 
musician.  Barring  glimpses  of  the  world  of  music, 
the  boy's  life  had  been  such  as  to  exclude  him  from 
all  the  finer  associations  of  life. 

He  had  written  me,  in  his  second  letter,  that  he 
was  "coloured";  and  he  had  given  this  informa- 
tion as  if  he  were  confessing  a  crime  more  serious 
even  than  murder.  He  really  felt  that  he  might  be 
uncovering  an  impassable  chasm  between  us. 
Race  prejudices  are  against  my  principles,  but  I 
was  taken  aback  when  the  writer  of  those  inter- 
esting letters  was  materialized  in  the  person  of 
the  blackest  little  negro  I  ever  saw.  "Black  as 
the  ace  of  spades,"  was  my  first  thought.  He 
had  no  father  at  that  time  but  was  devoted  to  his 
mother,  who  was  an  illiterate  colored  woman. 
As  a  growing  boy  he  had  gone  to  a  horse-race 
and,  fired  with  the  ambition  to  become  a  horse- 
jockey,  had  hung  around  the  racing-stables  until 
his  aptitude  for  the  business  attracted  the  horse- 
men. Harry  was  agile  and  fearless  and  of  light 
weight,  and  when  at  last  his  ambition  was  at- 
tained he  told  me  it  was  the  proudest  day  of  his 
life;  and  he  felt  that  he  had  achieved  glory  enough 
to  satisfy  any  one  when  the  horse  he  rode  as 
jockey  won  the  race. 

141 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

The  associations  of  the  race-track  formed  the 
school  of  those  plastic  years;  and  the  thorn  in  the 
flesh  was  the  nickname  of  "the  little  runt"  by 
which  he  was  known  among  the  men.  The  con- 
sciousness of  his  stunted  body  and  his  black 
skin  seemed  seared  upon  his  very  heart,  a  living 
horror  from  which  there  was  no  escape.  This,  far 
more  than  his  fate  as  a  life  prisoner,  was  the 
tragedy  of  his  existence.  Freedom  he  could  hope 
for;  but  only  death  could  release  him  from  his 
black  body.  He  did  not  despise  the  colored  race; 
rather  was  he  loyal  to  it;  it  was  his  individual 
destiny,  the  fact  that  his  life  was  incased  hi  that 
stunted  black  form  that  kept  alive  the  sense  of 
outrage.  He  hated  to  be  known  as  uthe  little 
runt."  He  hated  his  coal-black  skin. 

Doubtless  when  free  to  mingle  with  colored 
people  on  the  outside  his  other  faculties  came 
into  play,  for  he  had  the  darky  love  of  fun  and 
sense  of  humor;  but  the  prison  life  cut  him  off 
from  all  that,  and,  the  surface  of  his  nature  being 
stifled,  what  dormant  strains  of  white  ancestry 
might  not  have  been  aroused  to  activity?  His 
skin  was  black,  indeed;  but  his  features  told  the 
story  of  the  blending  with  another  race.  I  could 
but  feel  that  it  was  the  mind  of  the  white  man 

142 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

that  suffered  so  in  the  body  of  the  black — that 
in  this  prisoner  the  aristocrat  was  chained  to  the 
slave.  The  love  of  literature,  the  thirst  for  the 
higher  things  of  life,  had  no  connection  with 
"Little  Runt,"  the  ignorant  horse-jockey.  Was 
the  man  dying  of  homesickness  for  the  lost  plane 
of  life? 

The  theosophist  would  tell  us  that  Harry  Has- 
tings might  have  been  a  reincarnation  of  some 
cruel  slave-trader,  merciless  of  the  suffering  he 
inflicted  upon  his  innocent  victims;  and  possibili- 
ties of  the  stirring  of  latent  inherited  memories 
are  also  suggested.  Be  that  as  it  may,  we  cannot 
solve  the  problem  of  that  life  in  which  two  streams 
of  being  were  so  clearly  denned,  where  the  blue 
blood  was  never  merged  in  the  black. 

Harry's  handwriting  was  firm,  clear-cut,  and 
uniform.  I  lent  to  a  friend  the  most  striking  and 
characteristic  of  his  letters,  and  I  can  give  no 
direct  quotations  from  them,  as  they  were  not 
returned;  but  writing  was  his  most  cherished  re- 
source, and  he  tells  me  that  when  answering  my 
letters  he  almost  forgot  that  he  was  a  prisoner. 

The  terrible  ordeal  of  life  was  mercifully  short 
to  Harry  Hastings.  When  I  saw  him  last,  in  the 
prison  hospital,  a  wasted  bit  of  humanity  fast 

143 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

drifting  toward  the  shores  of  the  unknown,  with 
dying  breath  he  still  asserted  his  innocence;  but 
he  felt  himself  utterly  vanquished  by  the  decree 
of  an  adverse  fate.  To  the  mystery  of  death  was 
left  the  clearing  of  the  mystery  of  life. 

It  was  Hiram  Johnson  who  taught  me  what  a 
smothering,  ghastly  thing  prison  life  in  America 
may  be.  One  of  the  guards  had  said  to  me, 
<l  Hiram  Johnson  is  a  life  man  who  has  been  here 
for  years.  No  one  ever  comes  to  see  him,  and  I 
think  a  visit  would  do  him  lots  of  good."  The 
man  who  appeared  in  answer  to  the  summons 
was  a  short,  thick-set  fellow  of  thirty-five  or 
more,  with  eyes  reddened  and  disabled  by  marble- 
dust  from  the  shop  in  which  he  had  worked  for 
years.  He  smiled  when  I  greeted  him,  but  had 
absolutely  nothing  to  say.  I  found  that  visit 
hard  work;  the  man  utterly  unresponsive;  an- 
swering in  the  fewest  words  my  commonplace  in- 
quiries as  to  his  health,  the  shop  he  worked  in,  and 
how  long  he  had  been  there.  Six  months  after  I 
saw  him  again  with  exactly  the  same  experience. 
He  had  nothing  to  say  and  suggested  nothing  for 
me  to  say.  I  knew  only  that  he  expected  to  see 
me  when  I  came  to  the  prison,  and  after  making 
his  acquaintance  I  could  never  disappoint  one  of 

144 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

those  desolate  creatures  whose  one  point  of  con- 
tact with  the  world  was  the  half-hour  spent  with 
me  twice  a  year. 

When  I  had  seen  the  man  some  half-dozen  times, 
at  the  close  of  an  interview  I  said,  in  half-apology 
for  my  futile  attempts  to  keep  up  conversation: 
"I'm  sorry  that  I  haven't  been  more  interesting 
to-day;  I  wanted  to  give  you  something  pleasant 
to  think  of." 

"It  has  meant  a  great  deal  to  me,"  he  answered. 
"You  can't  know  what  it  means  to  a  man  just 
to  know  that  some  one  remembers  he  is  alive. 
That  gives  me  something  pleasant  to  think  about 
when  I  get  back  to  my  cell." 

We  had  begun  correspondence  at  the  opening 
of  our  acquaintance,  but  rarely  was  there  a  line 
in  his  earlier  letters  to  which  I  could  make  reply 
or  comment.  Mainly  made  up  of  quotations  from 
the  Old  Testament,  scriptural  imprecations  upon 
enemies  seemed  to  be  his  chief  mental  resource. 
The  man  considered  himself  "religious,"  and  had 
read  very  little  outside  his  Bible,  which  was  little 
more  intelligible  to  him  than  the  original  Greek 
would  have  been;  excepting  where  it  dealt  with 
denunciations. 

In  my  replies  to  these  letters  I  simply  aimed  to 
145 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

give  the  prisoner  glimpses  of  something  outside, 
sometimes  incidents  of  our  own  family  life,  and 
always  the  assurance  that  I  counted  him  among 
my  prison  friends,  that  "there  was  some  one  who 
remembered  that  he  was  alive."  It  was  five  or 
six  years  before  I  succeeded  in  extracting  the 
short  story  of  his  life,  knowing  only  that  he  had 
killed  some  one.  The  moral  fibre  of  a  man,  and 
the  sequence  of  events  which  resulted  in  the  com- 
mission of  a  crime  have  always  interested  me  more 
than  the  one  criminal  act.  One  day,  in  an  un- 
usually communicative  mood,  Johnson  told  me 
that  as  a  child  he  had  lost  both  parents,  that  he 
grew  up  in  western  Missouri  without  even  learn- 
ing to  read,  serving  as  chore-boy  and  farm-hand 
until  he  was  sixteen,  when  he  joined  the  Southern 
forces  hi  1863,  drifting  into  the  guerilla  warfare. 
It  was  not  through  conviction  but  merely  by 
chance  that  he  was  fighting  for  rather  than  against 
the  South;  it  was  merely  the  best  job  that  offered 
itself  and  the  killing  of  men  was  only  a  matter  of 
business.  Afterward  he  thought  a  good  deal  about 
this  guerilla  warfare  as  it  related  itself  to  his  own 
fate,  and  he  said  to  me: 

"I  was  paid  for  killing  men,  for  shooting  on 
sight  men  who  had  never  done  me  any  harm. 

146 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

The  more  men  I  killed  the  better  soldier  they 
called  me.  When  the  war  was  over  I  killed  one 
more  man.  I  had  reason  this  time,  good  reason. 
The  man  was  my  enemy  and  had  threatened  to 
kill  me,  and  that's  why  I  shot  him.  But  then  they 
called  me  a  murderer,  and  shut  me  up  for  the  rest 
of  my  life.  I  was  just  eighteen  years  old." 

Such  was  the  brief  story  of  Johnson's  life;  such 
the  teaching  of  war.  In  prison  the  man  was 
taught  to  read;  in  chapel  he  was  taught  that 
prison  was  not  the  worst  fate  for  the  murderer; 
that  an  avenging  God  had  prepared  endless  con- 
finement in  hell-fire  for  sinners  like  him  unless 
they  repented  and  propitiated  the  wrath  of  the 
Ruler  of  the  Universe.  And  so,  against  the  logic 
of  his  own  mind,  while  religion  apparently  jus- 
tified war,  he  tried  to  discriminate  between  war 
and  murder  and  to  repent  of  taking  the  one  life 
which  he  really  felt  justified  in  taking;  he  found  a 
certain  outlet  for  his  warlike  spirit  or  his  ele- 
mental human  desire  to  fight,  in  arraying  himself 
on  God's  side  and  against  the  enemies  of  the 
Almighty.  And  no  doubt  he  found  a  certain  kind 
of  consolation  in  denouncing  in  scriptural  lan- 
guage the  enemies  of  the  Lord. 

But  all  this  while  in  the  depths  of  Johnson's 
147 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

nature  something  else  was  working;  a  living  heart 
was  beating  and  the  sluggish  mind  was  seeking 
an  outlet.  A  gradual  change  took  place  in  his 
letters;  the  handwriting  grew  more  legible,  now 
and  again  gleams  of  the  buried  life  broke  through 
the  surface,  revealing  unexpected  tenderness  to- 
ward nature,  the  birds,  and  the  flowers.  Genuine 
poetic  feeling  was  expressed  in  his  efforts  to  re- 
spond to  my  friendship,  as  where  he  writes: 

"How  happy  would  I  be  could  I  plant  some 
thotte  in  the  harte  of  my  friend  that  would  give 
her  pleasure  for  many  a  long  day."  And  when 
referring  to  some  evidence  of  my  remembrance  of 
my  prisoners,  he  said:  "We  always  love  those 
littel  for-gett-me-nottes  that  bloom  in  the  harte 
of  our  friends  all  the  year  round.  Remember 
that  we  can  love  that  which  is  lovely." 

Dwelling  on  the  loneliness  of  prison  life  and 
the  value  of  even  an  occasional  letter,  he  writes: 
"The  kind  word  cheares  my  lonely  hours  with 
the  feelings  that  some  one  thinks  of  me.  Human 
nature  seems  to  have  been  made  that  way.  There 
are  many  who  would  soon  brake  down  and  die 
without  this  simpathy." 

Always  was  there  the  same  incongruity  between 
the  spelling  and  a  certain  dignity  of  diction,  which 

148 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

I  attributed  to  his  familiarity  with  the  Psalms. 
His  affinity  with  the  more  denunciatory  Psalms 
is  still  occasionally  evident,  as  when  he  closes 
one  letter  with  these  sentences:  "One  more  of  my 
enemies  is  dead.  The  hande  of  God  is  over  them 
all.  May  he  gather  them  all  to  that  country 
where  the  climate  is  warm  and  the  worm  dieth 
not!" 

To  me  this  was  but  the  echo  of  fragments  of 
Old  Testament  teaching.  At  last  came  one  letter 
in  which  the  prisoner  voiced  his  fate  in  sentences 
firm  and  clear  as  a  piece  of  sculpture.  This  is  the 
letter  exactly  as  it  was  written: 


DEAR  FRIEND: 
"I  hope  this  may  find  you  well.  It  has  bin 
some  time  since  I  heard  from  you  and  I  feel  that 
I  should  not  trespass  on  you  too  offten.  You 
know  that  whether  I  write  or  not  I  shall  in  my 
thottes  wander  to  you  and  shall  think  I  heare  you 
saying  some  sweet  chearing  word  to  incourage 
me,  and  it  is  such  a  pleasant  thing,  too.  But  you 
know  theas  stripes  are  like  bands  of  steel  to  keep 
one's  mouth  shut,  and  the  eye  may  not  tell  what 
the  heart  would  say  were  the  bondes  broken  that 
keep  the  lippes  shut.  If  one  could  hope  and  be- 

149 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

lieve  that  what  the  harte  desired  was  true,  then 
to  think  would  be  a  pleasure  beyond  anything 
else  the  world  could  give.  But  to  be  contented 
here  the  soul  in  us  must  die.  We  must  become 
stone  images. 

"Yourse  truly, 

"  HIRAM  JOHNSON.  " 

Not  for  himself  alone  did  this  man  speak.  "To 
be  contented  here  the  soul  in  us  must  die."  "We 
must  become  stone  images."  From  the  deepest 
depths  of  his  own  experience  it  was  given  to  this 
unlettered  convict  to  say  for  all  time  the  final 
word  as  to  the  fate  of  the  "life  man,"  up  to  the 
present  day. 

After  this  single  outburst,  if  anything  so  re- 
strained can  be  called  an  outburst,  Hiram  John- 
son subsided  into  much  of  his  former  immobility. 
Like  all  "  life  men"  he  had  begun  his  term  in  prison 
with  the  feeling  that  it  must  come  to  an  end  some- 
time. What  little  money  he  had  was  given  to  a 
lawyer  who  drew  up  an  application  for  shortening 
of  the  sentence,  the  petition  had  been  sent  to  the 
governor,  and  the  papers,  duly  filed,  had  long  lain 
undisturbed  in  the  governor's  office.  When  I 
first  met  Johnson  he  still  cherished  expectations 

150 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

that  "something  would  be  done"  in  his  case,  but 
as  years  rolled  by  and  nothing  was  done  the 
tides  of  hope  ran  low.  Other  men  sentenced 
during  the  sixties  received  pardons  or  commuta- 
tions or  had  died,  until  at  last  "old  Hiram  John- 
son" arrived  at  the  distinction  of  being  the  only 
man  in  that  prison  who  had  served  a  fifty-year 
sentence. 

Now,  a  fifty-year  sentence  does  not  mean  fifty 
years  of  actual  time.  In  different  States  the 
"good  time"  allowed  a  convict  differs,  this  good 
time  meaning  that  by  good  behavior  the  length 
of  imprisonment  is  reduced.  In  the  prison  of 
which  I  am  writing  long  sentences  could  be 
shortened  by  nearly  one-half:  thus  by  twenty- 
nine  years  of  good  conduct  Johnson  had  served  a 
legal  sentence  of  fifty  years.  No  other  convict 
in  that  prison  had  lived  and  kept  his  reason  for 
twenty-nine  years.  Johnson  had  become  a  figure 
familiar  to  every  one  in  and  about  the  place. 
Other  convicts  came  and  went,  but  he  remained; 
plodding  along,  never  complaining,  never  giving 
trouble,  doing  his  full  duty  within  its  circum- 
scribed limits.  Altogether  he  had  a  good  record 
and  the  authorities  were  friendly  to  him. 

Hitherto  I  had  never  asked  executive  clemency 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

except  in  cases  where  it  was  clear  that  the  sen- 
tence had  been  unjust;  and  I  had  been  careful  to 
keep  my  own  record  high  in  this  respect,  knowing 
that  if  I  had  the  reputation  of  being  ready  to 
intercede  for  any  one  who  touched  my  sympathies, 
I  should  lower  my  standing  with  the  governors. 
But  it  seemed  to  me  that  Johnson,  by  more 
than  half  his  lifetime  of  good  conduct  in  prison 
had  established  a  claim  upon  mercy,  and  earned 
the  right  to  be  given  another  chance  in  free- 
dom. 

I  found  the  governor  in  a  favorable  state  of 
mind,  as  in  one  of  his  late  visits  to  the  peniten- 
tiary Johnson  had  been  pointed  out  to  him  as  the 
only  man  who  had  ever  served  a  fifty-year  sen- 
tence. After  looking  over  the  petition  for  pardon 
then  on  file  and  ascertaining  that  Johnson  had 
relatives  to  whom  he  could  go,  the  governor  de- 
cided to  grant  his  release.  But  as  an  unlooked-for 
pardon  was  likely  to  prove  too  much  of  a  shock  to 
the  prisoner  the  sentence  was  commuted  to  a 
period  which  would  release  him  in  six  weeks,  and 
to  me  was  intrusted  the  breaking  of  the  news  to 
Johnson  and  the  papers  giving  him  freedom.  We 
knew  that  it  was  necessary  for  Johnson  to  be 
given  time  to  enable  his  mind  to  grasp  the  fact 

152 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  coming  release  and  to  make  very  definite 
plans  to  be  met  at  the  prison-gates  by  some  one 
on  whom  he  could  depend,  for  the  man  of  forty- 
seven  would  find  a  different  world  from  the  one 
he  left  when  a  boy  of  eighteen.  It  gives  one  a 
thrill  to  hold  in  one's  hands  the  papers  that  are 
to  open  the  doors  of  liberty  to  a  man  imprisoned 
for  life,  and  it  was  with  a  glad  heart  that  I  took 
the  next  train  for  the  penitentiary. 

My  interview  with  Johnson  was  undisturbed 
by  any  other  presence,  and  he  greeted  me  with  no 
premonition  of  the  meaning  of  the  roll  of  white 
paper  that  I  held.  Very  quietly  our  visit  began; 
but  when  Johnson  was  quite  at  his  ease,  I  asked: 
"Has  anything  been  done  about  your  case  since 
I  saw  you  last?"  "Oh,  no,  nothing  ever  will  be 
done  for  me!  I've  given  up  all  hope." 

"I  had  a  talk  with  the  governor  about  you 
yesterday,  and  he  was  willing  to  help  you.  He 
gave  me  this  paper  which  you  and  I  will  look  over 
together."  I  watched  in  vain  for  any  look  of  in- 
terest in  his  face  as  I  said  this. 

Slowly,  aloud,  I  read  the  official  words,  John- 
son's eyes  following  as  I  read;  but  his  realiza- 
tion of  the  meaning  of  the  words  came  with  diffi- 
culty. When  I  had  read  the  date  of  his  release 

153 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

we  both  paused;  as  the  light  broke  into  his  mind, 
he  said: 

"Then  in  January  I  shall  be  free";  another 
pause,  while  he  tried  to  grasp  just  what  this 
would  mean  to  him;  and  then,  "I  shall  be  free. 
Now  I  can  work  and  earn  money  to  send  you  to 
help  other  poor  fellows."  That  was  his  upper- 
most thought  during  the  rest  of  the  interview. 

In  the  evening  the  Catholic  chaplain,  Father 
Cyriac,  of  beloved  memory,  came  to  me  with  the 
request  that  I  have  another  interview  with  John- 
son, saying:  "The  man  is  so  distressed  because 
in  his  overwhelming  surprise  he  forgot  to  thank 
you  to-day." 

"He  thanked  me  better  than  he  knew,"  I  re- 
plied. 

But  of  course  I  saw  Johnson  again  the  next 
day;  and  in  this,  our  last  interview,  he  made  a 
final  desperate  effort  to  tell  me  what  his  prison 
life  had  been.  "Behind  me  were  stone  walls,  on 
each  side  of  me  were  stone  walls,  nothing  before 
me  but  stone  walls.  And  then  you  came  and 
brought  hope  into  my  life,  and  now  you  have 
brought  freedom,  and  /  cannot  find  words  to  thank 
you."  And  dropping  his  head  on  his  folded  arms 
the  man  burst  into  tears,  his  whole  body  shaken 

154 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

with  sobs.  I  hope  that  I  made  him  realize  that 
there  was  no  need  of  words,  that  when  deep 
calleth  unto  deep  the  heart  understands  in  silence. 

Only  yesterday,  turning  to  my  writing-desk  in 
search  of  something  else,  I  chanced  across  a  copy 
of  the  letter  I  wrote  to  the  governor  after  my  in- 
terview with  Johnson,  and  as  it  is  still  warm  with 
the  feelings  of  that  never-to-be-forgotten  experi- 
ence, I  insert  it  here: 

"I  cannot  complete  my  Thanksgiving  Day 
until  I  have  given  you  the  message  of  thanks  en- 
trusted to  me  by  Hiram  Johnson.  At  first  he 
could  not  realize  that  the  long  years  of  prison  life 
were  actually  to  be  ended.  It  was  too  bewilder- 
ing, like  a  flood  of  light  breaking  upon  one  who 
has  long  been  blind.  And  when  he  began  to 
grasp  the  meaning  of  your  gift  the  first  thing  he 
said  to  me  was,  '  Now  I  can  work  and  earn  money 
to  send  you  for  some  other  poor  fellow.' 

"Not  one  thought  of  self,  only  of  the  value  of 
liberty  as  a  means,  at  last,  to  do  something  for 
others.  How  hard  he  tried  to  find  words  to  ex- 
press his  gratitude.  It  made  my  heart  ache  for 
the  long,  long  years  of  repression  that  had  made 
direct  expression  almost  impossible;  and  in  that 
thankfulness,  so  far  too  deep  for  words,  I  read, 

155 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

too,  the  measure  of  how  terrible  the  imprisoned 
life  had  been.  Thank  heaven  and  a  good  governor, 
it  will  soon  be  over !  Hiram  Johnson  has  a  gener- 
ous heart  and  true,  and  he  will  be  a  good  man. 
And  it  is  beautiful  to  know  that  spiritual  life  can 
grow  and  unfold  even  under  the  hardest  con- 
ditions." 

What  life  meant  to  Johnson  afterward  I  do 
not  know;  but  I  do  know  that  he  found  home  and 
protection  with  relatives  on  a  farm,  and  the  let- 
ters that  he  wrote  me  indicated  that  he  took  his 
place  among  them  not  as  an  ex-convict  so  much  as 
a  man  ready  to  work  for  his  living  and  entitled 
to  respect.  Being  friendly  he  no  doubt  found 
friends;  and  though  he  was  a  man  near  fifty,  per- 
haps the  long-buried  spirit  of  youth  came  to  life 
again  in  the  light  of  freedom.  At  all  events, 
once  more  the  blue  skies  were  above  him  and 
he  drew  again  the  blessed  breath  of  liberty.  Al- 
though he  never  realized  his  dream  of  helping  me 
to  help  others,  I  never  doubted  the  sincerity  of  his 
desire  to  do  so. 


156 


CHAPTER  IX 

MR.  WILLIAM  ORDWAY  PARTRIDGE, 
in  "Art  for  America,"  says  to  us:  "Let 
us  learn  to  look  upon  every  child  face  that  comes 
before  us  as  a  possible  Shakespeare  or  Michael 
Angelo  or  Beethoven.  The  artistic  world  is  re- 
joicing over  the  discovery  in  Greece  of  some 
beautiful  fragments  of  sculpture  hidden  far  be- 
neath the  debris  of  centuries;  shall  we  not  rejoice 
more  richly  when  we  are  able  to  dig  down  beneath 
the  surface  of  the  commonest  child  that  comes 
to  us  from  our  great  cities,  and  discover  and  de- 
velop that  faculty  in  him  which  is  to  make  him 
fit  to  live  in  usefulness  with  his  fellow  men? 
Seeking  for  these  qualities  in  the  child  we  shall 
best  conserve,  as  is  done  in  physical  nature,  the 
highest  type,  until  we  have  raised  all  human  life 
to  a  higher  level." 

I  hope  that  some  day  Mr.  Partridge  will  write 
a  plea  for  elementary  art  classes  in  our  prisons. 
For  in  every  prison  there  are  gifted  men  and  boys 
whose  special  talents  might  be  so  trained  and  de- 

157 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

veloped  as  to  change  the  channel  of  their  lives. 
What  chances  our  prisons  have  with  these  wards 
of  the  state,  to  discover  and  develop  the  indi- 
vidual powers  that  might  make  their  owners  self- 
respecting  and  self-supporting  men ! 

We  are  doing  this  in  our  institutions  for  the 
feeble-minded  and  with  interesting  results,  but 
in  our  prisons  the  genius  of  a  Michael  Angelo 
might  be  stifled — the  musical  gift  of  a  Chopin 
doomed  to  eternal  silence. 

Mr.  Partridge's  belief  in  the  latent  possibili- 
ties in  our  common  children  went  to  my  heart, 
because  I  had  known  Anton  Zabrinski;  and  yet  I 
can  never  think  of  Anton  Zabrinski  as  a  common 
child. 

The  story  of  his  life  is  brief;  but  his  few  years 
enclosed  the  circle  of  childhood,  youth,  aspira- 
tion, hope,  horror,  tragedy,  pain,  and  death;  and 
all  the  beautiful  possibilities  of  his  outward  life 
were  blighted. 

Anton's  home  was  in  the  west  side  of  Chicago, 
in  that  region  where  successive  unpronounceable 
names  above  doors  and  across  windows  assure 
one  that  Poland  is  not  lost  but  scattered. 

In  back  rooms  in  the  third  story  of  the  house 
lived  the  Zabrinski  family,  the  father  and  mother 

158 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

with  Anton  and  his  sister  two  years  younger. 
The  mother  was  terribly  crippled  from  an  acci- 
dent in  childhood,  and  was  practically  a  prisoner 
in  her  home.  Anton,  her  only  son,  was  the  idol 
of  her  heart. 

When  scarcely  more  than  a  child  Anton  began 
work  tailoring.  He  learned  rapidly,  and  when 
sixteen  years  old  was  so  skilful  a  worker  that  he 
earned  twelve  dollars  a  week.  This  energy  and 
skill,  accuracy  of  perception  and  sureness  of 
touch,  gave  evidence  of  a  fine  organization.  His 
was  an  elastic,  joyous  nature,  but  his  growth  was 
stunted,  his  whole  physique  frail;  sensitive  and 
shy,  he  shrank  with  nervous  timidity  from  con- 
tact with  the  stronger,  rougher,  coarser-fibred 
boys  of  the  neighborhood.  Naturally  this  served 
only  to  make  Anton  a  more  tempting  target  for 
their  jokes. 

Two  of  these  boys  in  particular  played  upon 
his  fears  until  they  became  an  actual  terror  in  his 
existence;  though  the  boys  doubtless  never  imag- 
ined the  torture  they  were  inflicting,  nor  dreamed 
that  he  really  believed  they  intended  to  injure 
him.  It  happened  one  evening  that  Anton  was 
going  home  alone  from  an  entertainment,  when 
these  two  boys  suddenly  jumped  out  from  some 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

hiding-place  and  seized  him,  probably  intending 
only  to  frighten  him.  Frighten  him  they  did, 
out  of  all  bounds  and  reason.  In  his  frantic  efforts 
to  get  away  from  them  Anton  opened  his  pocket- 
knife  and  struck  out  blindly.  But  in  this  act  of 
self-defence  he  mortally  wounded  one  of  the  boys. 

Anton  Zabrinski  did  not  go  back  to  his  mother 
that  night ;  this  gentle,  industrious  boy,  doing  the 
work  and  earning  the  wages  of  a  man,  had  become, 
in  the  eye  of  the  law,  a  murderer.  I  have  written 
"in  the  eye  of  the  law";  a  more  accurate  state- 
ment would  be  "in  the  eye  of  the  court,"  for  under 
fair  construction  of  the  law  this  could  only  have 
been  a  case  of  manslaughter;  but 

I  once  asked  one  of  Chicago's  most  eminent 
judges  why  in  clear  cases  of  manslaughter  so 
many  times  men  were  charged  with  murder  and 
tried  for  murder.  The  judge  replied:  "Because 
it  is  customary  in  bringing  an  indictment  to  make 
the  largest  possible  net  in  which  to  catch  the 
criminal." 

Anton  Zabrinski  had  struck  out  with  his  knife 
in  the  mere  animal  instinct  of  self-defence.  The 
real  moving  force  of  evil  in  the  tragedy  was  the 
love  of  cruel  sport  actuating  the  larger  boys — a 
passion  leading  to  innumerable  crimes.  Were  the 

1 60 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

moral  origin  of  many  of  our  crimes  laid  bare  we 
should  clearly  see  that  the  final  act  of  violence 
was  but  a  result — the  rebound  of  an  evil  force 
set  in  motion  from  an  opposite  direction.  It 
sometimes  happens  that  it  is  the  slayer  who  is 
the  victim  of  the  slain.  But  to  the  dead,  who 
have  passed  beyond  the  need  of  our  mercy,  we 
are  always  merciful. 

Had  an  able  lawyer  defended  Anton  he  never 
would  have  been  convicted  on  the  charge  of 
murder;  but  the  family  was  poor,  and,  having 
had  no  experience  with  the  courts,  ignorantly 
expected  fairness  and  justice.  Anton  was  advised 
to  plead  guilty  to  the  charge  of  murder,  and  was 
given  to  understand  that  if  he  did  so  the  sentence 
would  be  light.  Throwing  himself  upon  "the 
mercy  of  the  court,"  the  boy  pleaded  "guilty." 
He  was  informed  that  "the  mercy  of  the  court" 
would  inflict  the  sentence  of  imprisonment  for  life. 
It  chanced  that  in  the  court-room  another  judge 
was  present  whose  sense  of  justice,  as  well  as  of 
mercy,  was  outraged  by  this  severity.  Moved 
with  compassion  for  the  undefended  victim  he 
protested  against  the  impending  sentence  and 
induced  the  presiding  judge  to  reduce  it  to  thirty 
years.  Thirty  years !  A  lifetime  indeed  to  the 

161 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

imagination  of  a  boy  of  seventeen.  The  crippled 
mother,  with  her  heart  torn  asunder,  was  left  in 
the  little  back  room  where  she  lived,  while  Anton 
was  taken  to  Joliet  penitentiary. 

It  did  not  seem  so  dreadful  when  first  it  came 
in  sight — that  great  gray-stone  building,  with  its 
broad,  hospitable  entrance  through  the  warden 
house;  but  when  the  grated  doors  closed  behind 
him  with  relentless  metallic  clang,  in  that  sound 
Anton  realized  the  death-knell  of  freedom  and 
happiness.  And  later  when,  for  the  first  night, 
the  boy  found  himself  alone  in  a  silent,  "solitary" 
cell,  then  came  the  agonizing  homesickness  of  a 
loving  young  heart  torn  from  every  natural  tie. 
Actually  but  two  hours  distant  was  home,  the 
little  back  room  transfigured  to  a  heaven  through 
love  and  the  yearning  cry  of  his  heart;  but  the 
actual  two  hours  had  become  thirty  years  of  prison 
in  the  future.  The  prison  life  itself  was  but  a 
dumb,  unshapen  dread  in  his  imagination.  And 
the  unmeaning  mystery  and  cruelty  and  horror 
of  his  fate !  Why,  his  whole  life  covered  but  seven- 
teen years,  of  which  memory  could  recall  not 

*  These  "solitary"  cells  in  which  a  prisoner  passed  his  first  night 
were  in  a  detached  building  in  which  the  punishment  cells  were 
located.  The  solitude  was  absolute  and  terrible. 

162 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

more  than  twelve;  he  knew  they  were  years  of 
innocence,  and  then  years  of  faithful  work  and 
honest  aims  until  that  one  night  of  horror,  when 
frightened  out  of  his  senses  he  struck  wildly  for 
dear  life.  And  then  he  had  become  that  awful 
thing,  a  murderer,  and  yet  without  one  thought 
of  murder  in  his  heart.  If  God  knew  or  cared, 
how  could  he  have  let  it  all  happen?  And  now 
he  must  repent  or  he  never  could  be  forgiven. 
And  yet  how  could  he  repent,  when  he  had  meant 
to  do  no  wrong;  when  his  own  quivering  agony 
was  surging  through  heart  and  mind  and  soul; 
when  he  was  overwhelmed  with  the  black  ir- 
revocableness  of  it  all,  and  the  sense  of  the  dark, 
untrodden  future?  One  night  like  that,  it  holds 
the  sufferings  of  an  ordinary  lifetime. 

We  who  have  reached  our  meridian  know  that 
life  means  trial  and  disappointment,  but  to  youth 
the  bubble  glows  with  prismatic  color;  and  to 
Anton  it  had  all  been  blotted  into  blackness 
through  one  moment  of  deadly  fear. 

When  young  convicts  are  received  at  Joliet 
penitentiary  it  is  customary  for  the  warden  to 
give  them  some  chance  for  life  and  for  develop- 
ment physically  and  mentally.  They  are  usually 
given  light  work,  either  as  runners  for  the  shops 

163 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

or  helpers  in  the  kitchens  or  dining-rooms,  where 
they  have  exercise,  fresh  air,  and  some  variety  in 
employment.  Anton  came  to  the  prison  when 
there  was  a  temporary  change  of  wardens,  and  it 
happened  when  he  was  taken  from  the  "solitary" 
cell  where  he  passed  the  first  night  that  he  was 
put  to  work  in  the  marble-shop,  a  hard  place  for 
a  full-grown  man.  He  was  given  also  a  com- 
panion in  his  cell  when  working-hours  were  over. 

As  he  became  fully  adjusted  to  prison  life  he 
learned  a  curious  thing:  on  the  outside  crime  had 
been  the  exception,  a  criminal  was  looked  upon 
as  one  apart  from  the  community;  but  in  this 
strange,  unnatural  prison  world  it  was  crime 
which  formed  the  common  basis  of  equality,  the 
tie  of  brotherhood. 

And  again,  the  tragedy  of  his  own  fate,  which 
had  seemed  to  him  to  fill  the  universe,  lost  its 
horrible  immensity  in  his  imagination  as  he  came 
to  realize  that  every  man  wearing  that  convict 
suit  bore  in  his  heart  the  wound  or  the  scar  of 
tragedy  or  of  wrong  inflicted  or  experienced.  He 
had  believed  that  nothing  could  be  so  terrible  as 
to  be  separated  from  home  and  loved  ones;  but 
learned  to  wonder  if  it  were  not  more  terrible 
never  to  have  known  loved  ones  or  home. 

164 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

When  his  cell-mate  estimated  the  "good  time" 
allowance  on  a  sentence  of  thirty  years,  Anton 
found  that  by  good  behavior  he  could  reduce  this 
sentence  to  seventeen  years.  That  really  meant 
something  to  live  for.  He  thought  he  should  be 
almost  an  old  man  if  he  lived  to  be  thirty-three — 
something  like  poor  old  Peter  Zowar  who  had  been 
in  prison  twenty-five  years;  but  no  prisoner  had 
ever  lived  there  thirty  years;  and  this  reduction 
to  seventeen  years  meant  to  Anton  the  difference 
between  life  and  death.  Even  the  seventeen  years' 
distance  from  home  began  to  be  bridged  when 
his  sister  Nina  came  to  see  him,  bringing  him  the 
oranges  and  bananas  indelibly  associated  with 
the  streets  of  Chicago,  or  cakes  made  by  his  own 
mother's  hands  and  baked  in  the  oven  at  home. 

Life  in  prison  became  more  endurable,  too,  when 
he  learned  that  individual  skill  in  every  depart- 
ment of  work  was  recognized,  and  that  sincerity 
and  faithfulness  counted  for  something  even  in  a 
community  of  criminals.  Praise  was  rare,  com- 
munication in  words  was  limited  to  the  neces- 
sities of  work;  but  in  some  indefinable  way  char- 
acter was  recognized  and  a  friendly  attitude  made 
itself  felt  and  warmed  the  heart;  and  the  nature 
so  sensitive  to  harshness  was  quick  to  perceive 
and  to  respond  to  kindness. 

'65 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

It  is  hard  to  be  in  prison  when  a  boy,  but  the 
older  convicts  regard  these  boys  with  compassion, 
touched  by  something  in  them  akin  to  their  own 
lost  youth,  or  perhaps  to  children  of  their  own. 
Little  Anton  looked  no  older  and  was  no  larger 
than  the  average  boy  of  fourteen;  and  to  the 
older  men  he  seemed  a  child. 

Human  nature  is  human  nature,  and  youth  is 
youth  in  spite  of  bolts  and  bars.  The  springtime 
of  life  was  repressed  in  Anton,  but  it  was  working 
silently  within  him,  and  silently  there  was  unfold- 
ing a  power  not  given  to  all  of  us.  His  work  in 
the  marble-shop  was  readily  learned,  for  the  ap- 
prenticeship at  tailoring  had  trained  his  eye  and 
hand,  and  steadfast  application  had  become 
habitual.  As  his  ability  was  recognized  orna- 
mental work  on  marble  was  assigned  him.  At 
first  he  followed  the  patterns  as  did  the  ordinary 
workmen;  these  designs  suggested  to  him  others; 
then  he  obtained  permission  to  work  out  the 
beautiful  lines  that  seemed  always  waiting  to 
form  themselves  under  his  hand,  and  the  patterns 
were  finally  set  aside  altogether.  The  art  impulse 
within  him  was  astir  and  finding  expression,  and 
as  time  passed  he  was  frankly  recognized  as  the 
best  workman  in  the  shop. 

166 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

He  was  homesick  still,  always  homesick,'  but 
fresh  interest  had  come  into  his  existence,  for 
unawares  the  spirit  of  beauty  had  come  to  be  the 
companion  of  his  working-hours.  He  did  not 
recognize  her.  He  had  never  heard  of  art  im- 
pulses. But  he  found  solid  human  pleasure  and 
took  simple  boyish  pride  in  the  individuality  and 
excellence  of  his  work. 

The  first  year  and  the  second  year  of  his  im- 
prisonment passed:  the  days  dawning,  darkening, 
and  melting  away,  as  like  to  one  another  as  beads 
upon  a  string,  each  one  counted  into  the  past  at 
night  as  meaning  one  day  less  of  imprisonment. 
But  toward  the  end  of  the  second  year  the  hours 
began  to  drag  interminably,  and  Anton's  interest 
in  his  work  flagged.  He  became  restless,  the 
marble  dust  irritated  his  lungs,  and  a  cough,  at 
first  unnoticed,  increased  until  it  constantly  an- 
noyed him.  Then  his  rest  at  night  was  broken 
by  pain  in  his  side,  and  at  last  the  doctor  ordered 
him  to  be  removed  from  the  marble-shop.  It 
was  a  frail  body  at  best,  and  the  confinement,  the 
unremitting  work,  the  total  lack  of  air  and  exer- 
cise had  done  their  worst;  and  all  resisting  phys- 
ical power  was  undermined. 

No  longer  able  to  work,  Anton  was  relegated  to 
167 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  "idle  room."  Under  the  wise  rule  of  recent 
wardens  the  idle  room  has  happily  become  a 
thing  of  the  past,  but  for  years  it  was  a  feature 
of  the  institution,  owing  partly  to  limited  hos- 
pital accommodations.  By  the  prisoners  gen- 
erally this  idle  room,  called  by  them  the  "dreary 
room,"  was  looked  upon  as  the  half-way  station 
between  the  shops  and  the  grave.  Most  cheer- 
less and  melancholy  was  this  place  where  men 
too  far  gone  in  disease  to  work,  men  worn  out  in 
body  and  broken  in  spirit,  waited  together  day 
after  day  until  their  maladies  developed  sufficiently 
for  them  to  be  considered  fit  subjects  for  hospital 
care.  Usually  no  reading-matter  was  allowed, 
and  free  social  intercourse  was  of  course  forbidden, 
although  the  inmates  occasionally  indulged  in  the 
luxury  of  comparing  diseases.  Under  the  strain 
of  that  deadening  monotony  courage  failed,  and 
to  many  a  man  indifferent  to  his  own  fate  the 
sight  of  the  hopelessness  of  others  was  heart- 
breaking. The  influence  of  the  idle  room  was  not 
quite  so  depressing  when  Anton  came  within  its 
circle,  for  a  light  industry  had  just  been  intro- 
duced there,  and  some  of  the  inmates  were  em- 
ployed. 

And  at  this  time  Anton  was  beginning  to  live  in 
168 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

a  day-dream.  His  cell-mate,  a  young  man  serving 
a  twenty  years'  sentence,  was  confidently  expect- 
ing a  pardon;  pardons  became  the  constant  theme 
of  talk  between  the  two  when  the  day  was  over, 
and  Anton's  faith  in  his  own  possible  release 
kindled  and  glowed  with  the  brightening  pros- 
pects of  his  friend.  Hope,  that  strange  character- 
istic of  tuberculosis,  flamed  the  higher  as  disease 
progressed;  with  the  hectic  flush  there  came  into 
his  eyes  a  more  brilliant  light,  and  a  stronger 
power  to  look  beyond  the  prison  to  dear  liberty 
and  home.  Even  the  shadow  of  the  idle  room 
could  not  dim  the  light  of  his  imagination.  No 
longer  able  to  carve  his  fancies  on  stone,  he  wove 
them  into  beautiful  patterns  for  life  in  freedom. 
The  hope  of  a  pardon  is  in  the  air  in  every  prison. 
Anton  wrote  to  his  family  and  talked  with  his 
sister  about  it,  and  though  he  made  no  definite 
beginning  every  day  his  faith  grew  stronger. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  I  met  Anton.  I  was 
visiting  at  the  penitentiary,  and  during  a  conversa- 
tion with  a  young  English  convict,  a  semi-protege 
of  Mary  Anderson,  the  actress,  this  young  man 
said  to  me:  "I  wish  you  knew  my  cell-mate."  I 
replied  that  I  already  knew  too  many  men  in 
that  prison.  "But  if  you  would  only  see  little 

169 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

Anton  I  know  you  would  be  mashed  in  a  minute," 
the  Englishman  confidently  asserted.  As  to  that 
probability  I  was  sceptical,  but  I  was  impressed  by 
the  earnestness  of  the  young  man  as  he  sketched 
the  outline  of  Anton's  story  and  urged  me  to  see 
him.  I  remember  that  he  made  a  point  of  this: 
"The  boy  is  so  happy  thinking  that  he  will  get 
a  pardon  sometime,  but  he  will  die  here  if  some- 
body doesn't  help  him  soon."  To  gratify  the 
Englishman  I  consented  to  see  the  happy  boy  who 
was  in  danger  of  dying. 

An  attractive  or  interesting  face  is  rare  among 
the  inmates  of  our  prisons.  The  striped  convict 
suit,  which  our  so-called  Christian  civilization  so 
long  inflicted  upon  fellow  men,  in  itself  gave  an 
air  of  degradation,*  and  the  repression  of  all 
animation  tends  to  produce  an  expression  of 
almost  uniform  dulness.  Notwithstanding  his 
cell-mate's  enthusiasm  I  was  thrilled  with  surprise, 
and  something  deeper  than  surprise,  when  I  saw 
Anton  Zabrinski.  The  beauty  of  that  young 
Polish  prisoner  shone  like  a  star  above  the  de- 
grading convict  suit.  It  was  the  face  of  a  Raphael, 
with  the  broad  brow  and  the  large,  luminous, 
far-apart  eyes  of  darkest  blue,  suggesting  in  their 

*  The  striped  convict  suit  was  practically  abolished  at  Joliet  the 
following  year. 

170 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

depths  all  the  beautiful  repressed  possibilities — 
eyes  radiant  with  hope  and  with  childlike  inno- 
cence and  trust.  My  heart  was  instantly  vibrant 
with  sympathy,  and  we  were  friends  with  the 
first  hand-clasp.  The  artistic  temperament  was 
as  evident  in  the  slender,  highly  developed  hands 
as  in  his  face. 

At  a  glance  I  saw  that  his  fate  was  sealed;  but 
his  spirit  of  hope  was  irresistible  and  carried  me 
on  in  its  own  current  for  the  hour.  Anton  was 
like  a  happy  child,  frankly  and  joyfully  opening 
his  heart  to  a  friend  whom  he  seemed  always  to 
have  known.  That  bright  hour  was  unclouded 
by  any  dark  forebodings  in  regard  to  illness  or 
an  obdurate  governor.  We  talked  of  pardon  and 
freedom  and  home  and  happiness.  I  did  not 
speak  to  him  of  repentance  or  preparation  for 
death.  I  felt  that  when  the  summons  came  to 
that  guileless  spirit  it  could  only  be  a  summons 
to  a  fuller  life. 

During  our  interview  the  son  of  the  new  warden 
came  in,  and  I  called  his  attention  to  Anton.  It 
was  charming  to  see  the  cordial,  friendly  fashion 
in  which  this  young  man*  talked  to  the  prisoner, 

*  This  young  man,  Edmund  M.  Allen,  is  now  warden  of  this  same 
prison,  and  has  so  developed  the  humanizing  methods  of  his  father 
as  to  bring  Joliet  penitentiary  into  the  front  rank  of  progressive 
prison  reform. 

171 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

asking  where  he  could  be  found  and  promising 
to  do  what  he  could  for  him,  while  Anton  felt 
that  at  last  he  was  touching  the  hand  of  Provi- 
dence. The  new  authorities  had  not  been  there 
long  enough  to  know  many  of  the  convicts  in- 
dividually, but  at  dinner  that  day  the  warden's 
son  interested  his  father  in  Anton  by  recounting 
their  conversation  that  morning.  The  warden's 
always  ready  sympathy  was  touched.  "Take  the 
boy  out  of  that  idle  room,"  he  said,  "take  him 
around  the  yard  with  you  to  see  the  dogs  and 
horses."  This  may  not  have  been  discipline,  but 
it  was  delightfully  human — and  humanizing. 

When  I  left  the  prison  I  was  assured  that  I 
could  depend  upon  the  warden's  influence  in 
furthering  my  purpose  of  realizing  Anton's  dream, 
his  faith  and  hope  of  pardon.  The  following 
Sunday  in  Chicago  I  found  the  Zabrinski  family, 
father,  mother,  and  the  young  sister,  in  their 
third-story  back  rooms.  On  the  wall  hung  a 
framed  photograph  of  Anton  as  a  little  child. 
The  mother  did  not  speak  very  clear  English, 
but  she  managed  to  repeat,  over  and  over  again: 
"Anton  was  so  good;  always  he  was  such  a  good 
boy."  The  young  sister,  a  tailoress,  very  trim  in 
her  dark-blue  Sunday  gown,  discussed  intelli- 

172 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

gently  ways  and  means  of  obtaining  her  brother's 
release. 

Our  plans  worked  smoothly,  and  a  few  weeks 
later,  when  all  Chicago  was  given  over  to  the 
World's  Fair,  the  desire  of  Anton's  heart  came 
true  and  he  was  restored  to  home  and  freedom. 
Or,  as  the  newspapers  would  have  put  it:  "Our 
anarchist  governor  let  loose  another  murderer  to 
prey  upon  society."  Poor  little  murderer!  In 
all  that  great  city  there  was  no  child  more  help- 
less or  harmless  than  he. 

The  image  of  little  Anton  Zabrinski,  as  of  the 
prison  itself,  grew  faint  in  my  heart  for  the  time, 
under  the  spell  of  the  long  enchanting  summer 
days  and  magical  evenings  at  the  White  City. 

The  interest  and  the  beauty  of  that  fusion  of 
all  times  and  all  countries  was  so  absorbing  and 
irresistible  that  I  had  stayed  on  and  on  until 
one  day  in  July  when  I  braced  myself  for  the 
wrench  of  departure  next  morning.  But  the 
evening  mail  brought  me  letters  from  home  and 
among  them  one  forwarded  from  Anton,  entreat- 
ing me  to  come  and  see  him.  I  had  not  counted 
on  being  remembered  by  Anton  except  as  a  mile- 
stone on  his  path  toward  freedom — I  might  have 
counted  on  it,  however,  after  my  many  experi- 

173 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

ences  of  the  gratitude  of  prisoners — but  his  long- 
ing to  see  me  was  unmistakable;  and  as  I  had 
broken  my  word  so  many  times  about  going  home 
that  my  reputation  for  unreliability  in  that  di- 
rection could  not  be  lowered,  I  sent  a  final  tele- 
gram of  delay. — Oh,  luxury  of  having  no  character 
to  lose ! 

The  next  morning  I  took  an  early  start  for  the 
home  of  the  Zabrinskis.  In  a  little  back  yard — a 
mere  patch  of  bare  ground  without  the  possibil- 
ity of  a  blade  of  grass,  with  no  chance  of  even 
looking  at  the  sky  unless  one  lay  on  one's  back, 
with  uniform  surroundings  of  back  doors  and  back 
stairs — what  a  contrast  to  that  dream  of  beauty 
at  Jackson  Park ! — here  it  was  that  I  found 
Anton,  listlessly  sitting  on  a  bench  with  a  little 
dog  as  companion.  All  hope  and  animation  seemed 
to  have  died  out  within  him;  even  the  lights  in 
his  deep-blue  eyes  had  given  way  to  shadows; 
strength  and  courage  had  ebbed  away,  and  he 
had  yielded  at  last  to  weariness  and  depression. 
He  had  left  the  prison,  indeed,  but  only  to  face 
death;  he  had  come  back  to  his  home,  only  to  be 
carried  away  from  it  forever.  Even  his  mother's 
loving  care  could  not  stop  that  racking  cough 
nor  free  him  from  pain.  And  how  limited  the 

174 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

longed-for  freedom  proved !  It  had  reached  out 
from  his  home  only  to  the  hospital  dispensary. 
Weakness  and  poverty  formed  impassable  bar- 
riers beyond  which  he  could  not  go. 

As  I  realized  all  this  I  resolved  to  give  him  the 
most  lovely  vision  in  the  world  to  think  of  and 
to  dream  of.  "Anton,"  I  said,  "how  would  you 
like  to  take  a  steamer  and  go  on  the  lake  with 
me  to  see  the  World's  Fair  from  the  water?" — 
for  him  to  attempt  going  on  the  grounds  was  not 
to  be  thought  of. 

For  a  moment  he  shrank  from  the  effort  of 
getting  to  the  steamer,  but  after  considering  it 
for  a  while  in  silence  he  announced:  "When  I 
make  up  my  mind  that  I  will  do  a  thing,  I  do  it; 
I  will  go  with  you."  Then  we  unfolded  our  plan 
for  adventure  to  the  mother.  Rather  wild  she 
thought  it,  but  our  persuasive  eloquence  won  the 
day  and  she  consented,  insisting  only  that  we 
should  partake  of  refreshments  before  starting  on 
our  expedition.  With  the  connivance  of  a  neigh- 
bor on  the  next  floor  Mrs.  Zabrinski  obtained  a 
delicious  green-apple  pie  from  a  bakery  near  by 
and  served  it  for  our  delectation. 

I  find  that  already  the  noble  lines,  with  their 
beautiful  lights  and  shadows,  in  the  Court  of 

175 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Honor  of  the  White  City  are  blending  into  an 
indistinct  memory;  but  the  picture  of  Anton 
Zabrinski  as  he  leaned  back  in  his  chair  on  the 
steamer,  breathing  the  delicious  pure,  fresh  air, 
sweeping  his  glance  across  the  boundless  plain 
of  undulating  blue,  will  be  with  me  forever.  Here 
at  last  was  freedom !  And  how  eagerly  the  boy's 
perishing  being  drank  it  in ! 

There  was  everything  going  on  around  us  to 
divert  and  amuse:  crowds  of  people,  of  course, 
and  a  noisy  band  of  musicians;  but  it  all  made  no 
impression  upon  Anton.  We  two  were  practically 
alone  with  the  infinite  sky  and  the  far-stretching 
water.  It  was  easy  then  for  Anton  to  tell  me  of 
his  deeper  thoughts,  and  to  speak  of  the  change 
that  he  knew  was  coming  soon.  Life  had  been 
so  hard,  only  fruitless  effort  and  a  losing  battle, 
and  now  he  longed  only  for  rest.  He  had  felt 
the  desire  to  give  expression  to  beautiful  form, 
he  had  felt  the  stirring  of  undeveloped  creative 
power.  We  spoke  of  the  future  not  as  death  but 
as  the  coming  of  new  life  and  as  the  opportunity 
for  the  fair  unfolding  of  all  the  higher  possibilities 
of  his  nature — as  freedom  from  all  fetters.  His 
faith,  simple  but  serious,  rested  upon  his  con- 
sciousness of  having,  in  his  inmost  soul,  loved 

176 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

and  sought  the  good.  His  outward  life  was  hope- 
lessly wrecked;  but  he  was  going  away  from  that, 
and  it  was  his  soul,  his  true  inner  life,  that  would 
appear  before  God.  It  was  all  a  mystery  and  he 
was  helpless,  but  he  was  not  afraid.  He  had  for- 
given life. 

As  we  talked  together  the  steamer  neared  the 
pier  at  Jackson  Park.  "And  now,  Anton,  you 
must  go  to  the  other  side  of  the  boat  and  see  the 
beautiful  White  City,"  I  said.  It  was  like  ala- 
baster in  its  clear  loveliness  that  radiant  morning, 
and  all  alive  with  the  lilting  colors  of  innumerable 
flags.  It  was  Swedish  day,  and  a  most  gorgeous 
procession  in  national  costume  thronged  the  dock 
as  our  steamer  approached,  for  we  had  on  board 
some  important  delegation.  A  dozen  bands  were 
playing  and  the  grand  crash  of  sound  and  the 
brilliant  massing  of  color  thrilled  me  to  my  finger- 
tips. But  Anton  only  looked  at  it  for  a  moment 
with  unseeing  eyes:  it  was  too  limited;  it  was  the 
stir  and  sound  and  crowd  of  the  city.  He  turned 
again  eagerly  to  the  great  sweep  of  sky  and  water; 
"You  don't  know  what  this  lake  and  this  fresh 
air  are  to  me,"  he  said  quietly,  and  he  looked  no 
more  toward  the  land  until  we  had  returned  to 
Van  Buren  Street. 

177 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

After  we  left  the  steamer  Anton  threw  off  the 
spell  of  the  water.  He  insisted  on  my  taking  a 
glass  of  soda  with  him  from  one  of  the  fountains 
on  the  dock;  it  was  his  turn  to  be  entertainer 
now.  I  drank  the  soda  and  live  to  tell  the  tale. 
By  that  time  we  had  caught  the  bohemian  spirit 
of  the  World's  Fair,  Anton  was  revived  and 
excited  by  the  hour  on  the  water,  and  as  we 
crossed  over  to  Michigan  Avenue  the  brilliant 
life  of  the  street  attracted  and  charmed  him,  and 
I  proposed  walking  slowly  down  to  the  Audi- 
torium Hotel.  Every  step  of  the  way  was  a 
delight  to  Anton,  and  when  we  reached  the  great 
hotel  I  waited  in  the  ladies'  reception-room  while 
Anton  strolled  through  the  entrances  and  office, 
looking  at  the  richly  blended  tones  of  the  marbles 
and  the  decoration  in  white  and  gold.  I  knew 
that  it  would  be  one  more  fresh  and  lovely  mem- 
ory for  him  to  carry  back  to  the  little  rooms 
where  the  brief  remnant  of  his  life  was  to  be  spent. 

At  an  adjoining  flower-stand  we  found  sweet 
peas  for  his  mother.  I  saw  him  safely  on  board 
the  car  that  would  take  him  to  his  home;  then, 
with  a  parting  wave  of  his  hand  and  a  bright, 
happy  smile  of  farewell,  little  Anton  Zabrinski 
passed  out  of  my  sight. 

178 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

Through  the  kindness  of  a  friend  I  had  the 
very  great  happiness  of  sending  Anton  a  pass, 
"For  bearer  and  one,"  that  gave  him,  with  an 
escort,  the  freedom  of  the  World's  Fair  steamers 
for  the  summer — the  greatest  possible  boon  to 
the  boy,  for  even  when  too  weak  to  go  to  the 
steamer  he  could  still  cherish  the  expectation  of 
that  delight. 

Anton's  strength  failed  rapidly.  He  wrote  me 
one  letter  saying:  "I  can  die  happy  now  that  I 
am  with  my  mother.  I  thank  you  a  thousand 
times  over  and  over  for  your  kind  feeling  towards 
me  and  the  kind  words  in  your  letters,  and  the 
charming  rose  you  sent.  I  cannot  write  a  long 
letter  on  account  of  my  pains  through  my  whole 
chest.  I  can't  turn  during  the  night  from  one 
side  to  another.  Dear  Friend,  I  don't  like  to 
tell  my  misery  and  sorrows  to  persons,  but  I 
can't  help  telling  you." 

Another  letter  soon  followed,  but  not  from 
Anton.  It  was  the  sister  who  wrote: 

"DEAR  FRIEND: 

"With  deep  sorrow  I  inform  you  of  my  dear 
brother's  death.  He  died  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  He  had  a  great  desire  to  see  you  be- 

179 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

fore  he  died.    We  should  be  glad  to  see  you  at 
the  funeral  if  convenient  Wednesday  morning. 
"Pardon  this  poor  letter 

"  from  your  loving  friend 

"Miss  NINA  ZABRINSKJ." 


180 


CHAPTER  X 

ON  a  lovely  evening  some  thirty  years  ago 
there  was  a  jolly  wedding  at  the  home  of  a 
young  Irish  girl  in  a  Western  city.  Tom  Evans, 
the  groom,  a  big-hearted,  jovial  fellow,  was  deeply 
in  love  with  the  girl  of  his  choice.  He  was  earning 
good  wages  and  he  intended  to  take  good  care  of 
his  wife. 

It  was  midnight,  and  the  streets  were  flooded 
with  brilliant  moonlight  when  Evans  started  to 
take  his  bride  from  her  home  to  his,  accompanied 
on  the  way  by  Jim  Maguire,  Larry  Flannigan, 
and  Ned  Foster,  three  of  the  wedding  guests. 
They  were  not  carriage  folks  and  were  walking  to 
the  street-car  when  Jim  Maguire,  who  had  not 
been  averse  to  the  exhilarating  liquids  in  hospi- 
table circulation  at  the  wedding  feast,  became  un- 
duly hilarious  and  disported  himself  with  song 
and  dance  along  the  sidewalk — a  diversion  in 
which  the  others  took  no  part.  This  hilarity  was 
summarily  interrupted  by  a  policeman,  who  at- 
tempted to  arrest  the  young  man  for  disorderly 

181 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

conduct,  a  proceeding  vigorously  resisted  by 
Maguire. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  an  affray  in  which 
the  policeman  was  killed,  and  the  whole  party 
were  arrested  and  taken  into  custody.  As  the 
policeman  was  well  known,  one  of  the  most 
popular  men  on  the  force,  naturally  public  in- 
dignation ran  high  and  the  feeling  against  his 
slayers  was  bitter  and  violent. 

Tom  Evans  and  Jim  Maguire  were  held  for 
murder,  while  Larry  Flannigan,  a  boy  of  seven- 
teen, and  Ned  Foster,  as  participants  in  the  af- 
fair, were  charged  with  manslaughter.  The  men 
were  given  fair  trials — separate  trials,  I  believe — 
in  different  courts,  but  it  was  impossible  to  get 
at  the  facts  of  the  case,  as  there  were  no  actual 
witnesses  outside  of  those  directly  affected  by  the 
outcome;  while  each  lawyer  for  the  defence  did 
his  best  to  clear  his  own  client  from  direct  respon- 
sibility for  the  death  of  the  policeman,  regardless 
of  the  deserts  of  the  others  under  accusation. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  Jim  Maguire  and 
Tom  Evans  were  "sent  up"  for  life,  while  the 
bride  of  an  hour  returned  to  her  father's  house 
and  in  the  course  of  time  became  the  bride  of 
another,  Larry  Flannigan  was  sentenced  to 

182 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

fourteen  years'  imprisonment.  Ned  Foster,  hav- 
ing served  a  shorter  sentence,  was  released  pre- 
vious to  my  acquaintance  with  the  others. 

Some  five  years  later  one  of  the  prison  officers 
interested  in  Jim  Maguire  asked  me  to  interview 
the  man.  Maguire  was  a  tall,  muscular  fellow, 
restive  under  confinement  as  a  hound  in  leash; 
nervous,  too,  and  with  abounding  vitality  ready 
at  a  moment's  notice  again  to  break  out  in  song 
and  dance  if  only  the  chance  were  given.  This 
very  overcharge  of  high  animal  spirits,  excited  by 
the  wedding  festivities,  was  the  starting-point  of 
all  the  tragedy.  No  doubt,  too,  in  his  make-up 
there  were  corresponding  elements  of  reckless- 
ness and  defiance. 

Our  first  interview  was  the  beginning  of  an  ac- 
quaintance resulting  in  an  interchange  of  letters; 
but  it  was  not  until  a  year  afterward  that  in  a 
long  conversation  Maguire  gave  me  an  account 
of  his  part  in  the  midnight  street  encounter.  Ad- 
mitting disorderly  conduct  and  resistance  against 
the  officer,  he  claimed  that  it  was  resistance  only 
and  not  a  counter  attack;  stating  that  the  strug- 
gle between  the  two  continued  until  the  officer 
had  the  upper  hand  and  then  continued  beating 
him  into  subjection  so  vigorously  that  Maguire 

183 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

called  for  help  and  was  rescued  from  the  hands  of 
the  officer  by  "one  of  the  other  boys."  He  did 
not  say  which  one  nor  further  implicate  any  one. 

"Ask  the  other  boys,"  he  said.  "Larry  didn't 
have  anything  to  do  with  the  killing,  but  he  saw 
the  whole  thing.  Get  Larry  to  tell  the  story,"  he 
urged. 

And  so  I  was  introduced  to  Larry.  He  was 
altogether  of  another  type  from  Maguire.  I 
hardly  knew  whether  he  wore  the  convict  stripes 
or  broadcloth  when  I  was  looking  into  that  face, 
so  sunny,  so  kindly,  so  frank.  After  all  these 
years  I  can  never  think  of  Larry  without  a  glow 
in  my  heart.  He  alone,  of  all  my  prisoners,  ap- 
peared to  have  no  consciousness  of  degradation, 
of  being  a  convict;  but  met  me  simply  and  nat- 
urally as  if  we  had  been  introduced  at  a  picnic. 

I  told  him  of  my  interview  with  Jim  Maguire 
and  his  immediate  comment  was:  "Jim  ought 
not  to  be  here;  he  resisted  arrest  but  he  did  not 
kill  the  officer;  he's  here  for  life  and  it's  wrong,  it's 
terrible.  I  hope  you  will  do  something  for  Jim." 

"But  what  of  yourself?"  I  asked;  "you  seem 
to  have  been  outside  of  the  affair  altogether.  I 
think  I'd  better  do  something  for  you." 

"Oh,  no!"  he  protested,  "you  can  get  one 
184 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

man  out  easier  than  two.  I  want  to  see  Jim  out, 
and  I  don't  want  to  stand  in  his  way.  You  know 
I  am  innocent,  and  all  my  friends  believe  me  in- 
nocent, and  I'm  young  and  well  and  can  stand 
my  sentence;  it  will  be  less  than  ten  years  with 
good  time  off.  My  record  is  perfect  and  I  shall 
get  along  all  right.  But  Jim  is  here  for  life." 

I  felt  as  if  I  were  dreaming.  I  knew  it  would 
be  a  simple  matter  to  obtain  release  for  Larry, 
who  had  already  been  there  six  years,  but  no,  the 
boy  would  not  consider  that,  would  not  even  dis- 
cuss it.  His  thought  was  all  for  Jim,  and  he  was 
unconscious  of  self-sacrifice.  He  simply  set  aside 
what  seemed  to  him  the  lesser  good  in  order  to 
secure  the  greater. 

"Did  you  ever  make  a  full  statement  in  court?" 
I  asked. 

"No.  We  were  only  allowed  to  answer  direct 
questions  in  the  examinations.  None  of  us  were 
given  a  chance  to  tell  the  straight  story." 

"So  the  straight  story  never  came  out  at  any 
of  the  trials?" 

"No." 

Thinking  it  high  time  that  the  facts  of  a  case 
in  which  two  men  were  suffering  imprisonment  for 
life  should  be  ascertained  and  put  on  record  some- 

185 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

where,  it  then  remained  for  me  to  interview 
Evans,  and  to  see  how  nearly  the  statements  of 
the  three  men  agreed,  each  given  to  me  in  private 
six  years  after  the  occurrence  of  the  event. 

Tom  Evans — I  see  him  now  clearly  as  if  it  were 
but  yesterday — a  thick-set,  burly  figure  with  an 
intelligent  face  of  good  lines  and  strong  char- 
acter; a  man  of  force  who  from  his  beginning  as 
brakesman  might  have  worked  his  way  up  to 
superintending  a  railroad,  had  the  plan  of  his 
destiny  been  different. 

I  told  him  frankly  that  I  had  asked  to  see  him 
in  the  interest  of  the  other  two,  and  that  what  I 
wanted  first  of  all  was  to  get  the  facts  of  the 
case,  for  the  tragedy  was  still  a  "case"  to  me. 

"And  you  want  me  to  tell  the  story?"  I  felt 
the  vibration  of  restrained  emotion  in  the  man 
from  the  first  as  he  pictured  the  drama  enacted 
in  that  midnight  moonlight. 

"I  had  just  been  married  and  we  were  going  to 
my  home.  The  streets  were  light  as  day.  Jim 
was  singing  and  dancing,  when  the  policeman 
seized  him.  I  saw  there  was  going  to  be  a  fight 
and  I  made  up  my  mind  to  keep  out  of  it;  for 
when  I  let  my  temper  go  it  gets  away  with  me. 
So  I  stood  back  with  my  girl.  Jim  called  for 

186 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

help  but  I  stood  back  till  I  really  believed  Jim 
might  be  killed.  I  couldn't  stand  by  and  see  a 
friend  beaten  to  death,  or  take  any  chance  of 
that.  And  so  I  broke  into  the  fight.  I  got  hold 
of  the  policeman's  club  and  began  to  beat  the 
policeman.  I  am  a  strong  man  and  I  can  strike 
a  powerful  blow." 

Here  Evans  paused,  and  there  was  silence  be- 
tween us  until  he  said  with  a  change  of  tone  and 
expression : 

"It  was  Larry  who  came  to  the  help  of  the 
policeman  and  got  the  club  away  from  me.  It's 
Larry  that  ought  to  be  out.  Jim  made  the  trouble 
and  I  killed  the  policeman,  but  Larry  is  wholly 
innocent.  He  is  the  one  I  want  to  see  out." 

At  last  we  were  down  to  bed-rock;  there  was  no 
doubt  now  of  the  facts  which  the  clumsy  machinery 
of  the  courts  had  failed  to  reach. 

I  assured  Evans  that  I  would  gladly  do  what  I 
could  for  Larry,  and  then  and  there  Evans  and  I 
joined  hands  to  help  "the  other  boys."  I  real- 
ized something  of  the  sacrifice  involved  when  I 
asked  Evans  if  he  was  willing  to  make  a  sworn 
statement  in  the  presence  of  the  warden  of  the 
facts  he  had  given  me.  What  a  touchstone  of 
the  man's  nature !  But  he  was  following  the  lead 

187 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  truth  and  justice  and  there  was  no  turning 
back. 

We  all  felt  that  it  was  a  serious  transaction  in 
the  warden's  office  next  day  when  Evans  came  in 
and,  after  a  little  quiet  conversation  with  the 
warden,  made  and  signed  a  statement  to  the  effect 
that  he,  and  he  only,  struck  the  blows  that  killed 
the  policeman,  and  with  hand  on  the  Bible  made 
oath  to  the  truth  of  the  statement,  which  was 
then  signed,  as  witnesses,  by  the  warden  and  a 
notary. 

As  Evans  left  the  office  the  warden  said  to  me: 
"Something  ought  to  be  done  for  that  man  also 
when  the  other  boys  are  out." 

I  knew  that  in  securing  this  confession  I  had 
committed  myself  to  all  the  necessary  steps  in- 
volved before  the  prison  doors  could  be  opened 
to  Maguire  and  Larry.  And  in  my  heart  I  was 
already  pledged  to  befriend  the  man  who,  with 
unflinching  courage,  had  imperilled  his  own 
chances  of  liberation  in  favor  of  the  others;  for  I 
was  now  beginning  to  regard  Evans  as  the  central 
figure  in  the  tragedy. 

It  is  no  brief  nor  simple  matter  to  obtain  the 
release  of  a  man  convicted  of  murder  by  the  court 
and  sentenced  to  life  imprisonment  unless  one 

188 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

has  political  influence  strong  enough  to  override 
all  obstacles.  Almost  endless  are  the  delays  likely 
to  occur  and  the  details  to  be  worked  out  before 
one  has  in  hand  all  the  threads  necessary  to  be 
woven  into  the  fabric  of  a  petition  for  executive 
clemency. 

In  order  to  come  directly  in  touch  with  the 
families  of  Larry  and  Maguire,  and  with  the 
competent  lawyer  already  enlisted  in  their  serv- 
ice and  now  in  possession  of  the  statement  of 
Evans,  I  went  to  the  city  where  the  crime  was 
committed.  The  very  saddest  face  that  I  had 
seen  in  connection  with  this  affair  was  the  face  of 
Maguire's  widowed  mother.  She  was  such  a 
little  woman,  with  spirit  too  crushed  and  broken 
by  poverty  and  the  fate  of  her  son  to  revive  even 
at  the  hope  of  his  release.  It  was  only  the  ghost 
of  a  smile  with  which  she  greeted  me;  but  when 
we  parted  her  gratitude  called  down  the  blessings 
of  all  the  saints  in  the  calendar  to  follow  me  all 
my  days. 

Larry's  people  I  found  much  the  same  sort  as 
he,  cheerful,  generous,  bravely  meeting  their  share 
of  the  hard  luck  that  had  befallen  him,  apparently 
cherishing  the  treasure  of  his  innocence  more 
than  resenting  the  injustice,  but  most  grateful 

189 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

for  any  assistance  toward  his  liberation.  The 
lawyer  who  had  interviewed  Larry  and  Maguire 
at  the  penitentiary  expressed  amazement  at  what 
he  called  "the  unbelievable  unselfishness"  of 
Larry.  "I  did  not  suppose  it  possible  to  find  that 
spirit  anywhere,  last  of  all  in  a  prison,"  he  said. 
Larry  had  consented  to  be  included  on  the  petition 
drawn  up  for  Maguire  only  when  convinced  that 
it  would  not  impair  Maguire's  chances. 

When  I  left  the  place  the  lines  appeared  to  be 
well  laid  for  the  smooth  running  of  our  plans.  I 
do  not  now  remember  what  prevented  the  pres- 
entation of  the  petition  for  commutation  of  both 
sentences  to  twelve*  years;  but  more  than  a  year 
passed  before  the  opportune  time  seemed  to  be 
at  hand. 

During  this  interval  Evans  was  by  no  means 
living  always  in  disinterested  plans  for  the  benefit 
of  the  others.  The  burden  of  his  own  fate  hung 
heavily  over  him  and  no  one  in  the  prison  was 
more  athirst  for  freedom  than  he.  In  books  from 
the  prison  library  he  found  some  diversion,  and 
when  tired  of  fiction  he  turned  to  philosophy, 
seeking  to  apply  its  reasoning  to  his  own  hard 

*  The  good  time  allowed  on  a  twelve  years'  sentence  reduces  it 
to  seven  years  and  three  months. 

IQO 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

lot;  again,  he  sought  in  the  poets  some  expression 
and  interpretation  of  his  own  feelings.  It  was 
in  the  ever  welcome  letters  that  he  found  most 
actual  pleasure,  but  he  encountered  difficulties  in 
writing  replies  satisfactory  to  himself.  In  a 
letter  now  before  me  he  says: 

"I  only  wish  that  I  could  write  as  I  feel,  then 
indeed  would  you  receive  a  gem;  but  I  can't, 
more's  the  pity.  But  I  can  peruse  and  cherish 
your  letters,  and  if  I  dare  I  would  ask  you  to 
write  oftener.  Just  think,  the  idea  strikes  me 
that  I  am  writing  to  an  authorous,  me  that  never 
could  spell  a  little  bit.  But  the  authorous  is  my 
friend,  is  she  not,  and  will  overlook  this  my  defect. 
I  have  done  the  best  I  could  to  write  a  nice  letter 
and  I  hope  it  will  please  you,  but,  in  the  words  of 
Byron, 

"What  is  writ  is  writ: 

Would  it  were  worthier.     But  I  am  not  now 

That  which  I  have  been,  and  my  visions  flit 

Less  palpably  before  me,  and  the  glow 

Which  in  my  spirit  dwelt  is  fluttering  faint  and  low.' 

"With  the  last  line  of  your  letter  I  close,  'write 
soon,  will  you  not  ? ' ' 

Evans's  letters  to  me  were  infrequent,  as  he 
kept  in  correspondence  with  his  lawyers,  who  en- 

191 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

couraged  him  to  hope  that  he  would  not  spend  all 
his  life  behind  the  bars.  Others,  too,  claimed  his 
letters.  He  writes  me: 

"I  have  a  poor  old  mother  who  expects  and 
always  gets  my  Christmas  letters,  but  I  resolved 
that  you  should  have  my  first  New  Years  letter, 
so  here  it  is,  wishing  you  a  happy  new  year  and 
many  of  them.  No  doubt  you  had  many  Christ- 
mas letters  from  here  telling  you  of  the  time  we 
had,  and  a  jolly  good  time  it  was.  It  is  awfully 
dark  here  in  the  cells  to  day  and  I  can  hardly 
see  the  lines  to  write  on.  I  hope  you  won't  have 
as  much  trouble  in  reading  it."  The  handwriting 
in  Evans's  letters  is  vigorous,  clear,  and  open;  a 
straightforward,  manly  hand,  without  frills  or 
flourishes. 

Just  as  I  was  leaving  home  for  one  of  my  semi- 
annual visits  to  the  penitentiary,  I  had  informa- 
tion from  their  lawyer  that  the  petition  for 
Maguire  and  Larry  would  be  presented  to  the 
governor  the  following  month.  Very  much  elated 
with  the  good  news  I  was  bringing  I  asked  first 
for  an  interview  with  Evans.  He  came  in,  evi- 
dently in  very  good  spirits,  but  as  I  proceeded 
to  relate  with  enthusiasm  what  we  had  accom- 
plished I  felt  an  increasing  lack  of  response  on 

192 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  part  of  Evans  and  saw  the  light  fading  from 
his  face. 

"0  Miss  Taylor,"  he  said  at  last,  with  such  a 
note  of  pain  in  his  voice,  "you  know  my  lawyers 
have  been  working  for  me  all  this  time.  Of  course 
I  told  them  of  the  statement  I  made  in  the  war- 
den's office,  and  then  left  the  case  in  their  hands. 
One  of  them  was  here  yesterday  and  has  a  pe- 
tition now  ready  asking  that  my  sentence  be 
reduced  to  fifteen  years.  Now  if  the  other  pe- 
tition goes  in  first 

There  was  no  need  to  finish  the  sentence  for 
the  conflict  of  interests  was  clear;  and  Evans  was 
visibly  unnerved.  We  talked  together  for  a  long 
time.  While  unwilling  to  influence  his  decision  I 
realized  that,  if  his  petition  should  have  first  con- 
sideration and  be  granted,  the  value  of  that  con- 
fession, so  important  to  the  others,  would  be  im- 
paired, and  the  chances  of  Maguire's  release 
lessened;  for  the  governors  are  wary  in  accepting 
as  evidence  the  confession  of  a  man  who  has 
nothing  to  lose.  On  the  other  hand,  I  had  not 
the  heart  to  quench  the  hopes  that  Evans's 
lawyers  had  kindled.  And  in  answer  to  his  ques- 
tion, "What  shall  I  do?"  I  could  only  say:  "That 
is  for  you  to  decide." 

193 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

At  last  Evans  pulled  himself  together  enough 
to  say:  "Well,  I'm  not  going  back  on  the  boys 
now.  I  didn't  realize  just  how  my  lawyers'  efforts 
were  going  to  affect  them.  I'm  going  to  leave 
the  matter  in  your  hands,  for  I  know  you  will  do 
what  is  right."  And  this  he  insisted  on. 

"Whatever  course  may  seem  best  to  take  now, 
Tom,  after  this  I  shall  never  rest  till  I  see  you,  too, 
out  of  prison,"  was  my  earnest  assurance. 

There  had  been  such  a  spirit  of  fair  play  among 
these  men  that  I  next  laid  the  case  before  Maguire 
and  Larry,  and  we  three  held  a  consultation  as 
to  the  best  line  of  action.  They,  too,  appreciated 
the  generosity  of  Evans  and  realized,  far  more 
than  I  could,  what  it  might  cost  him.  Doubtless 
each  one  of  the  three  felt  the  strong  pull  of  self- 
interest;  but  there  was  no  faltering  in  their 
unanimous  choice  of  a  square  deal  all  around. 
One  thing  was  clear,  the  necessity  of  bringing 
about  an  understanding  and  concerted  action 
between  the  lawyers  whose  present  intentions  so 
seriously  conflicted.  The  advice  and  moral  sup- 
port of  the  warden  had  been  invaluable  to  me, 
and  he  and  I  both  felt,  if  the  lawyers  could  be 
induced  to  meet  at  the  prison  and  consult  not 
only  with  each  other  but  with  their  three  clients, 

194 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

if  they  could  only  come  in  direct  touch  with  these 
convicts  and  realize  that  they  were  men  who 
wanted  to  do  the  right  thing  and  the  fair  thing, 
that  a  petition  could  be  drawn  placing  Evans  and 
Maguire  on  the  same  footing,  and  asking  the  same 
reduction  of  sentence  for  both;  while  Larry  in 
justice  was  entitled  to  a  full  pardon.  I  still  be- 
lieve that  if  this  course  had  been  taken  both  pe- 
titions would  have  been  granted.  But  lawyers 
in  general  seem  to  have  a  constitutional  aversion 
to  short  cuts  and  simple  measures,  and  Evans's 
lawyers  made  no  response  to  any  overtures  to- 
ward co-operation. 

At  about  this  time  occurred  a  change  in  the 
State  administration,  with  the  consequent  in- 
evitable delay  in  the  consideration  of  petitions 
for  executive  clemency;  as  it  was  considered  im- 
politic for  the  newly  elected  governor  to  begin  his 
career  by  hasty  interference  with  the  decision  of 
the  courts,  or  too  lenient  an  attitude  toward  con- 
victs. 

Then  ensued  that  period  of  suspense  which 
seems  fairly  to  corrode  the  heart  and  nerves  of 
the  long-time  convict.  The  spirit  alternates  be- 
tween the  fever  of  hope  and  the  chill  of  despair. 
Men  pray  then  who  never  prayed  before.  The 

195 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

days  drag  as  they  never  dragged  before;  and  when 
evening  comes  the  mind  cannot  occupy  itself  with 
books  while  across  the  printed  page  the  same 
questions  are  ever  writing  themselves:  "Shall  I 
hear  to-morrow?"  "Will  the  governor  grant  or 
refuse  my  petition?"  One  closes  the  book  only 
to  enter  the  restless  and  wearisome  night,  breath- 
ing the  dead  air  of  the  prison  cell,  listening  to  the 
tread  of  the  guard  in  the  corridor.  Small  wonder 
would  it  be  if  in  those  midnight  hours  Evans 
cursed  the  day  in  which  he  declared  that  he  alone 
killed  the  policeman;  but  neither  in  his  letters  to 
me  nor  in  his  conversation  was  there  ever  an  in- 
dication of  regret  for  that  action.  The  Catholic 
chaplain  of  the  prison  was  truly  a  good  shepherd 
and  comforter  to  his  flock,  and  it  was  real  spiritual 
help  and  support  that  he  gave  to  the  men.  His 
advice  at  the  confessional  may  have  been  the  seed 
from  which  sprung  Evans's  resolve  to  clear  his 
own  conscience  and  exonerate  the  others  when 
the  opportunity  came. 

Maguire  never  fluctuated  in  his  confidence  that 
freedom  was  on  the  way,  but  he  was  consumed 
with  impatience;  Larry  alone,  who  never  sought 
release,  bided  his  time  in  serene  cheerfulness. 

And  the  powers  that  be  accepted  Larry's  sacri- 
196 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

fice;  for  so  long  was  the  delay  in  the  governor's 
office  that  Maguire  was  released  on  the  day  on 
which  Larry's  sentence  expired.  The  world  looked 
very  bright  to  Jim  Maguire  and  Larry  Flannigan 
as  they  passed  out  of  the  prison  doors  into  liberty 
together.  Maguire  took  up  life  again  in  his  old 
environment,  not  very  successfully,  I  have  reason 
to  think.  But  Larry  made  a  fresh  start  in  a  dis- 
tant city,  unhampered  by  the  fact  that  he  was  an 
ex-convict. 

It  was  then  that  the  deadly  blight  of  prison 
life  began  to  throw  its  pall  over  Evans,  and  the 
long  nervous  strain  to  undermine  his  health.  He 
wrote  me: 

"I  am  still  working  at  the  old  job,  and  I  can 
say  with  truth  that  my  antipathy  to  it  increases 
each  day.  I  am  sick  and  tired  of  writing  to  lawyers 
for  the  last  two  years,  and  it  amounted  to  noth- 
ing. I  will  gladly  turn  the  case  over  to  you  if  you 
can  do  anything  with  it." 

The  event  proved  that  these  lawyers  were  in- 
terested in  their  case,  but  politically  they  were  in 
opposition  to  the  governor  and  had  no  influence; 
nor  did  I  succeed  better  in  making  the  matter 
crystallize. 

I  had  always  found  Evans  animated  and  in- 
197 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

terested  in  whatever  we  were  talking  about  until 
one  interview  when  he  had  been  in  prison  about 
thirteen  years,  all  that  time  on  prison  contract 
work.  The  change  in  his  appearance  was  evident 
when  he  came  into  the  room.  He  seated  himself 
listlessly,  and  my  heart  sank,  for  too  well  I  knew 
that  dull  apathy  to  which  the  long-time  men  suc- 
cumb. Now,  knowing  with  what  glad  anticipa- 
tion he  had  formerly  looked  forward  to  our  in- 
terviews, I  was  determined  that  the  hour  should 
not  pass  without  leaving  some  pleasant  memory; 
but  it  was  twenty  minutes  or  more  before  the 
cloud  in  his  eyes  lifted  and  the  smile  with  which 
he  had  always  greeted  me  appeared.  His  whole 
manner  changed  as  he  said :  "Why,  Miss  Taylor,  I 
am  just  waking  up,  beginning  to  realize  that  you 
are  here.  My  mind  is  getting  so  dull  that  nothing 
seems  to  make  any  impression  any  more."  He 
was  all  animation  for  the  rest  of  the  time,  eagerly 
drinking  hi  the  joy  of  sympathetic  companion- 
ship.— What  greater  joy  does  life  give? 

But  I  had  taken  the  alarm,  for  clearly  the  man 
was  breaking  down,  and  I  urged  the  warden  to 
give  him  a  change  of  work.  The  warden  said  he 
had  tried  to  arrange  that;  but  Evans  was  on  con- 
tract work,  one  of  the  best  men  in  the  shop,  and 

198 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  contractors  were  unwilling  to  give  up  so 
profitable  a  workman — the  evils  of  the  contract 
system  have  much  to  answer  for.  So  Evans 
continued  to  work  on  the  contract,  and  the 
prison  blight  progressed  and  the  man's  vitality 
was  steadily  drained.  When  the  next  whiter 
came  and  la  grippe  invaded  the  prison,  the  re- 
sisting power  of  Evans  was  sapped;  and  when  at- 
tacked by  the  disease  he  was  relegated  to  the 
prison  hospital  to  recuperate.  He  did  not  re- 
cuperate; on  the  contrary,  various  symptoms  of 
general  physical  deterioration  appeared  and  it 
was  evident  that  his  working  days  on  the  prison 
contract  were  over. 

A  renewed  attempt  was  now  made  to  procure 
the  release  of  Evans,  as  his  broken  health  furnished 
a  reason  for  urgency  toward  immediate  action 
on  the  part  of  the  governor,  and  this  last  attempt 
was  successful.  The  good  news  was  sent  to  Evans 
that  in  a  month  he  would  be  a  free  man,  and  I 
was  at  the  prison  soon  after  the  petition  was 
granted.  I  knew  that  Evans  was  in  the  hospital, 
but  had  not  been  informed  of  his  critical  condition 
until  the  hospital  physician  told  me  that  serious 
heart  trouble  had  developed,  intensified  by  ex- 
citement over  the  certainty  of  release. 

199 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

No  shadow  of  death  was  visible  or  was  felt  in 
this  my  last  visit  with  Evans,  who  was  dressed  and 
sitting  up  when  I  went  in  to  see  him.  Never, 
never  have  I  seen  any  one  so  happy  as  was  Evans 
that  morning.  With  heart  overflowing  with  joy 
and  with  gratitude,  his  face  was  radiant  with  de- 
light. All  the  old  animation  was  kindled  again, 
and  the  voice,  no  longer  lifeless,  was  colored  and 
warm  with  feeling. 

"I  want  to  thank  everybody,"  he  said,  "the 
governor,  my  lawyers,  the  warden,  and  you. 
Everybody  has  been  so  good  to  me  these  last 
weeks.  And  I  shall  be  home  for  next  Sunday. 
My  sister  is  coming  to  take  me  to  her  home,  and 
she  and  my  mother  will  take  care  of  me  until  I'm 
able  to  work.  Sister  writes  me  that  mother  can't 
sit  still,  but  walks  up  and  down  the  room  in  her 
impatience  to  see  me." 

We  two  friends,  who  had  clasped  hands  in  the 
darkness  of  his  fate,  were  together  now  when  the 
dawn  of  his  freedom  was  breaking,  neither  of  us 
realizing  that  it  was  to  be  the  greater  freedom  of 
the  Life  Invisible. 

To  us  both,  however,  this  hour  was  the  beauti- 
ful culmination  of  our  years  of  friendship.  I  read 
the  man's  heart  as  if  it  were  an  open  book  and  it 
held  only  good  will  toward  all  the  world. 

200 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Something  moved  me  to  speak  to  him  as  I  had 
never  spoken  to  one  of  my  prisoners,  to  try  and 
make  him  feel  my  appreciation  of  his  courage, 
his  unselfishness,  his  faithfulness.  I  told  him  that 
I  realized  how  he  had  lived  out  the  qualities  of  the 
most  heroic  soldier.  To  give  one's  life  for  one's 
country  when  the  very  air  is  charged  with  the 
spirit  of  patriotism  is  a  fine  thing  and  worthy  of 
the  thrill  of  admiration  which  it  always  excites. 
But  liberty  is  dearer  than  life,  and  the  prison 
atmosphere  gives  little  inspiration  to  knightly 
deeds.  This  man  had  risen  above  himself  into 
that  higher  region  of  moral  victory.  And  so  I 
said  what  was  in  my  heart,  while  something  deeper 
than  happiness  came  into  Evans's  face. 

And  then  we  said  good-by,  smiling  into  each 
other's  eyes.  This  happened,  I  think,  on  the  last 
day  but  one  of  Evans's  life. 

Afterward  it  was  told  in  the  prison  that  Evans 
died  of  joy  at  the  prospect  of  release.  For  him 
to  be  carried  into  the  new  life  on  this  high  tide 
of  happiness  seemed  to  me  a  gift  from  heaven. 
For  in  the  thought  of  the  prisoner  freedom  in- 
cludes everything  to  be  desired  in  life.  The 
joy  of  that  anticipation  had  blinded  Evans  to 
the  fact  that  his  health  was  ruined  beyond  repair. 
He  was  spared  the  realization  that  the  life  of 

201 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

freedom,  so  fair  to  his  imagination,  could  never 
truly  be  his;  for  the  prison-house  of  disease  has 
bolts  and  bars  which  no  human  hand  can  with- 
draw. 

But  that  mother !  If  she  could  have  read  only 
once  again  the  light  of  his  love  for  her  in  the  eyes 
of  her  son !  But  the  sorrows  of  life  fall  alike  upon 
the  just  and  the  unjust. 


202 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  psychological  side  of  convict  life  is  in- 
tensely interesting,  but  in  studying  brain 
processes,  supposed  to  be  mechanical,  one's  the- 
ories and  one's  logical  conclusions  are  likely  to  be 
baffled  by  a  factor  that  will  not  be  harnessed  to 
any  set  of  theories;  namely,  that  something  which 
we  call  conscience.  We  forget  that  the  criminal  is 
only  a  human  being  who  has  committed  a  crime, 
and  that  back  of  the  crime  is  the  same  human 
nature  common  to  us  all. 

During  the  first  years  when  I  was  in  touch  with 
prison  life  I  had  only  occasional  glimpses  of  re- 
morse for  crimes  committed.  The  minds  of  most 
of  the  convicts  seemed  to  dwell  on  the  "extenu- 
ating circumstances"  more  than  on  the  criminal 
act,  and  the  hardships  of  prison  life  were  almost 
ever  present  in  their  thoughts.  I  had  nearly  come 
to  consider  the  remorse  pictured  in  literature  and 
the  drama  as  an  unreal  thing,  when  I  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Ellis  Shannon  and  found  it:  a 
monster  that  gripped  the  human  heart  and  held 

203 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

it  as  in  a  vise.  Nemesis  never  completed  a  work 
of  retribution  more  fully  than  it  was  completed  in 
the  life  of  Ellis  Shannon. 

Shannon  was  born  in  an  Eastern  city,  was  a 
boy  of  more  than  average  ability,  and  there 
seemed  no  reason  why  he  should  have  gone 
wrong;  but  he  early  lost  his  father,  his  mother 
failed  to  control  him,  and  when  about  sixteen 
years  of  age  he  fell  into  bad  company  and  was 
soon  launched  in  his  criminal  career.  He  broke 
off  all  connection  with  his  family,  went  West, 
and  for  ten  years  was  successful  in  his  line  of  busi- 
ness— regular  burglary.  He  was  widely  known 
among  men  of  his  calling  as  "The  Greek,"  and  his 
"professional  standing"  was  of  the  highest.  The 
first  I  ever  heard  of  him  was  from  one  of  my  other 
prison  friends,  who  wrote  me:  "If  you  want  to 

know  about  life  in  prison,  write  to  Ellis 

Shannon,  who  is  there  now.  You  can  depend 
absolutely  on  what  he  says — and  when  one  pro- 
fessional says  that  of  another  you  know  it  means 
something. "  I  did  not,  however,  avail  myself  of 
this  introduction. 

Shannon's  reputation  for  cool  nerve  was  undis- 
puted, and  it  was  said  that  he  did  not  know 
what  fear  was.  In  order  to  keep  a  clear  head 

204 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

and  steady  hand  he  refrained  from  dissipation; 
he  prided  himself  upon  never  endangering  the 
lives  of  those  whose  houses  he  entered,  and  de- 
spised the  bunglers  who  did  not  know  their  busi- 
ness well  enough  to  avoid  personal  encounter  in 
their  midnight  raids.  Unlike  most  men  of  his 
calling  he  always  used  a  candle  on  entering  a 
building,  and  his  associates  often  told  him  that 
sometime  that  candle  would  get  him  into  trouble. 

One  night  the  house  of  a  prominent  and  popular 
citizen  was  entered.  While  the  burglar  was  pur- 
suing his  nefarious  work  the  citizen  suddenly 
seized  him  by  the  shoulders,  pulling  him  back- 
ward. The  burglar  managed  to  fire  backward 
over  his  own  head,  the  citizen's  hold  was  relaxed, 
and  the  burglar  fled.  The  shot  proved  fatal;  the 
only  trace  left  by  the  assailant  was  a  candle 
dropped  on  the  floor. 

A  reward  was  offered  for  the  capture  and  con- 
viction of  the  murderer.  Circumstantial  evidence 
connected  with  the  candle  led  to  the  arrest  of 
George  Brett,  a  young  man  of  the  same  town, 
not  of  the  criminal  class.  The  verdict  in  the  case 
turned  upon  the  identification  of  the  piece  of 
candle  found  in  the  house  with  one  procured  by 
the  accused  the  previous  day;  and  in  the  opinion 

205 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  the  court  this  identification  was  proven. 
Brett  admitted  having  obtained  a  piece  of  candle 
from  that  grocer  on  that  afternoon,  but  claimed 
that  he  had  used  it  in  a  jack-o'-lantern  made  for  a 
child  in  the  family.*  Proof  was  insufficient  to 
convict  the  man  of  the  actual  crime,  but  this  bit 
of  evidence,  with  some  other  less  direct,  was 
deemed  sufficiently  incriminating  to  warrant  send- 
ing Brett  to  prison  for  a  term  of  years — seventeen, 
I  think;  and  though  the  convicted  man  always 
asserted  his  innocence  his  guilt  was  taken  for 
granted  while  six  years  slipped  by. 

Ellis  Shannon,  hi  the  meantime,  had  been  ar- 
rested for  burglary  in  another  State  and  had 
served  a  sentence  in  another  penitentiary.  He 
seemed  to  have  lost  his  nerve,  and  luck  had  turned 
against  him.  On  his  release  still  another  burglary 
resulted  in  a  ten  years'  sentence,  this  time  to 
the  same  prison  where  Brett  was  paying  the 
penalty  of  the  crime  in  which  the  candle  had 
played  so  important  a  part. 

The  two  convicts  happened  to  have  cells  in  the 
same  part  of  the  prison,  and  for  the  first  time 
Ellis  Shannon  came  face  to  face  with  George 
Brett.  A  few  days  later  Shannon  requested  an 

*  The  crime  was  committed  after  the  midnight  of  Hallowe'en. 
206 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

interview  with  the  warden.  In  the  warden's 
office  he  announced  that  he  was  the  man  guilty 
of  the  crime  for  which  Brett  was  suffering,  and 
that  Brett  had  no  part  in  it.  He  drew  a  sketch 
of  the  house  burglarized — not  altogether  correct 
—gave  a  succinct  account  of  the  whole  affair,  and 
declared  his  readiness  to  go  into  court,  plead 
guilty  to  murder,  and  accept  the  sentence,  even 
to  the  death  penalty.  Action  on  this  confession 
was  promptly  taken.  Shannon  was  sent  into 
court  and  on  his  confession  alone  was  sentenced 
to  imprisonment  for  life. 

Brett  was  overjoyed  by  this  vindication  and 
the  expectation  of  immediate  release.  But,  no; 
the  prosecuting  parties  were  unconvinced  by 
Shannon's  confession,  which,  in  their  opinion,  did 
not  dispose  of  the  evidence  against  Brett. 

It  was  a  curious  state  of  affairs,  and  one  per- 
haps never  paralleled,  that,  while  a  man's  unsup- 
ported statement  was  considered  sufficient  to 
justify  the  imposing  of  a  sentence  to  life  impris- 
onment, this  statement  counted  for  nothing  as 
affecting  the  fate  of  the  other  man  involved. 
And  there  was  never  a  trace  of  collusion  between 
the  two  men,  either  at  the  time  of  the  crime  or 
afterward. 

207 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Shannon's  story  of  the  crime  I  shall  give  in  his 
own  terse  language,  quoted  from  his  confession 
published  in  the  newspapers: 

"Up  to  the  time  of  killing  Mr.  I  had 

never  even  wounded  anybody.  I  had  very  little 
regard  for  the  rights  of  property,  but  to  shoot  a 
man  dead  at  night  in  his  own  house  was  a  climax 
of  villainy  I  had  not  counted  on.  A  professional 
thief  is  not  so  blood-thirsty  a  wretch  as  he  is 
thought  to  be.  ...  I  am  setting  up  no  defense 
for  the  crime  of  murder  or  burglary — it  is  all 
horrible  enough.  It  was  a  miserable  combina- 
tion of  circumstances  that  caused  the  shooting 
that  night.  I  was  not  feeling  well  and  so  went 
into  the  house  with  my  overcoat  on — something 
I  had  never  done  before.  It  was  buttoned  to  the 
throat.  I  had  looked  at  Mr. a  moment  be- 
fore and  he  was  asleep.  I  had  then  turned  and 
taken  down  his  clothes.  I  had  a  candle  in  one 
hand  and  the  clothes  in  the  other.  I  would  have 
left  in  a  second  of  time  when  suddenly,  before  I 

could  turn,  Mr.  spoke.  As  quick  as  the 

word  he  had  his  arms  thrown  around  me;  the 
candle  went  out  and  we  were  in  the  dark. 

"Now  I  could  hardly  remember  afterwards  how 
it  all  occurred.  There  was  no  time  to  think.  I 

208 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

was  helpless  as  a  baby  in  the  position  in  which 
I  was  held.  There  is  no  time  for  reflection  in  a 
struggle  like  this.  He  was  holding  me  and  I 
was  struggling  to  get  away.  I  told  him  several 
times  to  let  go  or  I'd  shoot.  I  was  nearly  crazy 
with  excitement  and  it  was  simply  the  animal 
instinct  of  self-preservation  that  caused  me  to 
fire  the  shots. 

"I  was  so  weak  when  I  got  outside  that  in 
running  I  fell  down  two  or  three  times.  That 
night  in  Chicago  I  was  in  hopes  the  man  was 
only  wounded,  and  in  that  case  I  had  determined 
to  quit  the  business.  When  I  read  the  account 
in  the  papers  next  morning  all  I  can  say  is  that, 
although  I  was  in  the  city  and  perfectly  safe, 
with  as  little  chance  of  being  discovered  as  if  I 
were  in  another  planet,  I  would  have  taken  my 
chances — whether  it  would  have  been  five  or 
twenty  years  for  the  burglary — if  it  were  only 
in  my  power  to  do  the  thing  over  again.  I  did 
not  much  care  what  I  did  after  this.  I  thought  I 
could  be  no  worse  than  I  was. 

"In  a  few  months  I  was  arrested  and  got  five 

years  for  a  burglary  in .  I  read  what  I 

could  of  the  trial  from  what  papers  I  could  get; 
and  for  the  first  time  I  saw  what  a  deadly  web 

209 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

circumstances  and  the  conceit  of  human  shrewd- 
ness can  weave  around  an  innocent  man. 

"The  trial  went  on.  I  did  not  open  my  mouth. 
I  knew  that  if  I  said  a  word  and  went  into  court 
fresh  from  the  penitentiary  I  would  certainly  be 
hanged,  and  I  had  not  reached  a  point  when  I 
was  ready  to  sacrifice  my  life  for  a  stranger. 

"In  the  feverish  life  I  led  in  the  short  time  out 
of  prison  I  forgot  all  about  this,  until  I  found 
myself  here  for  ten  years  and  then  I  thought: 
there  is  a  man  in  this  prison  doing  hard  work, 
eating  coarse  food,  deprived  of  everything  that 
makes  life  worth  having,  and  suffering  for  a  crime 
of  which  he  knows  as  little  as  the  dust  that  is 
yet  to  be  created  to  fill  these  miserable  cells.  I 
thought  what  a  hell  the  place  must  be  to  him. 

"No  one  has  worked  this  confession  out  of  me. 
I  wish  to  implicate  no  one,  but  myself.  If  you 
will  not  believe  what  I  say  now,  and  -  -  stays 
in  prison,  it  is  likely  the  truth  will  never  be  known. 
But  if  in  the  future  the  man  who  was  with  me 
that  night  will  come  to  the  front,  whether  I  am 
alive  or  dead,  you  will  find  that  what  I  have  told 
you  is  as  true  as  the  law  of  gravitation.  I  was 

never  in  the  town  of -  before  that  time  or 

since.  I  did  not  know  whom  I  had  killed  until  I 

210 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

read  of  it.    I  do  not  know (Brett)  or  any 

of  his  friends.  But  I  do  know  that  he  is  per- 
fectly innocent  of  the  crime  he  is  in  prison  for. 
I  know  it  better  than  any  one  in  the  world  be- 
cause I  committed  the  crime  myself." 

The  position  of  Brett  was  not  affected  in  the 
least  by  this  confession,  though  his  family  were 
doing  all  in  their  power  to  secure  his  release. 
The  case  was  considered  most  difficult  of  solu- 
tion. The  theory  of  delusion  on  Shannon's  part 
was  advanced  and  was  accepted  by  those  who 
believed  Brett  guilty,  but  received  no  credence 
among  the  convicts  who  knew  Shannon  and  the 
burglar  associated  with  him  at  the  time  the  crime 
was  committed. 

I  had  never  sought  the  acquaintance  of  a 
"noted  criminal"  before,  but  this  case  interested 
me  and  I  asked  to  see  Shannon.  For  the  first  time 
I  felt  myself  at  a  disadvantage  in  an  interview 
with  a  convict.  A  sort  of  aloofness  seemed  to 
form  the  very  atmosphere  of  his  personality,  and 
though  he  sat  near  me  it  was  with  face  averted 
and  downcast  eyes;  the  face  seemed  cut  in  marble, 
it  was  so  pale  and  cold,  with  clear-cut,  regular 
features,  suggesting  a  singular  appropriateness  in 
his  being  known  as  "The  Greek." 

211 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

I  opened  conversation  with  some  reference  to 
the  newspaper  reports;  Shannon  listened  courte- 
ously but  with  face  averted  and  eyes  downcast, 
and  then  in  low,  level  tones,  but  with  a  certain 
incisiveness,  he  entered  upon  the  motive  which  led 
to  his  confession,  revealing  to  me  also  his  own 
point  of  view  of  the  situation.  Six  years  had 
passed  since  the  crime  was  committed,  and  all  that 
time,  he  said,  he  had  believed  that,  if  he  could 
bring  himself  to  confess,  Brett  would  be  cleared 
— that  during  these  six  years  the  murder  had  be- 
come a  thing  of  the  past,  partially  extenuated  in 
his  mind,  on  the  ground  of  self-defence;  but  when 
he  found  himself  in  the  same  prison  with  Brett, 
here  was  a  result  of  his  crime,  living,  suffering; 
and  in  the  depths  of  Shannon's  own  conscience 
pleading  for  vindication  and  liberty.  As  a  burden 
on  his  own  soul  the  murder  might  have  been  borne 
in  silence  between  himself  and  his  Creator,  but  as 
a  living  curse  on  another  it  demanded  confession. 
And  the  desire  to  right  that  wrong  swept  through 
his  being  with  overmastering  force. 

"I  had  always  believed,"  he  said,  "that  'truth 
crushed  to  earth  would  rise  again,'  and  I  was 
willing  to  give  my  life  for  truth;  but  I  learned 
that  the  word  of  a  convict  is  nothing — truth  in 
a  convict  counts  for  nothing." 

212 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

The  man  had  scarcely  moved  when  he  told 
me  all  this,  and  he  sat  like  a  statue  of  despair  when 
he  relapsed  into  silence — still  with  downcast 
eyes;  I  was  absolutely  convinced  of  the  truth  of 
what  he  had  told  me,  of  the  central  truth  of  the 
whole  affair,  his  guilt  and  his  consciousness  of  the 
innocence  of  the  other  man.  That  his  impres- 
sions of  some  of  the  details  of  the  case  might  not 
square  with  known  facts  was  of  secondary  im- 
portance; to  me  the  internal  evidence  was  con- 
vincing. Isn't  there  something  in  the  Bible  to 
the  effect  that  "spirit  beareth  witness  unto 
spirit"  ?  At  all  events,  sometimes  a  woman  knows. 

I  told  Shannon  that  I  believed  in  his  truth, 
and  I  offered  to  send  him  magazines  and  letters 
if  he  wished.  Then  he  gave  me  one  swift  glance 
of  scrutiny,  with  eyes  accustomed  to  reading 
people,  thanked  me,  and  added  as  we  parted:  "If 
there  were  more  people  like  you  in  this  world 
there  wouldn't  be  so  many  like  me." 

My  belief  in  the  truth  of  Shannon's  state- 
ment was  purely  intuitive,  but  in  order  to  make 
it  clear  to  my  understanding  as  well  I  studied 
every  objection  to  its  acceptance  by  those  who 
believed  Shannon  to  be  the  victim  of  a  de- 
lusion. His  sincerity  no  one  doubted.  It  was 
claimed  that  Shannon  had  manifested  no  interest 

213 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

in  the  case  previous  to  his  arrival  in  the  prison 
where  Brett  was.  On  the  way  to  this  prison 
Shannon,  in  attempting  to  escape  from  the  sheriff, 
had  received  a  blow  on  the  back  of  his  head, 
which  it  was  assumed  might  have  affected  his 
mind.  Among  my  convict  acquaintances  was  a 
man  who  had  worked  in  the  shop  beside  Shannon 
in  another  prison,  at  the  time  of  Brett's  trial  for 
the  crime,  and  this  man  could  have  had  no 
possible  motive  for  incriminating  Shannon.  He 
told  me  that  during  all  the  time  of  the  trial,  five 
years  previous  to  the  blow  on  his  head,  Shannon 
was  greatly  disturbed,  impatient  to  get  hold  of 
newspapers  which  he  had  to  borrow,  and  ap- 
parently absorbed  in  studying  the  evidence 
against  Brett,  but  saying  always,  "They  can't 
convict  him."  This  convict  went  on  to  tell  me 
that  after  the  case  was  decided  against  Brett 
Shannon  seemed  to  lose  his  nerve  and  all  interest 
in  life.  This  account  tallies  exactly  with  Shan- 
non's printed  confession,  in  which  he  says:  "I 
read  what  I  could  of  the  trial  in  what  papers  I 
could  get.  I  had  not  yet  reached  the  point  where 
I  was  willing  to  sacrifice  my  life  for  a  stranger." 
In  his  confession  Shannon  had  spoken  of  his 
accomplice  in  that  terrible  night's  work  as  one 

214 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

who  could  come  forward  and  substantiate  his 
statements.  Four  different  convicts  of  my  ac- 
quaintance knew  who  this  man  was,  but  not  one 
of  them  was  able  to  put  me  in  communication 
with  him.  The  man  had  utterly  disappeared. 
But  this  bit  of  evidence  as  to  his  knowledge  of 
the  crime  I  did  collect — his  whereabouts  was 
known  to  at  least  one  other  of  my  convict  ac- 
quaintances till  the  day  after  Shannon's  confes- 
sion was  made  public.  That  day  my  acquaintance 
received  from  Shannon's  accomplice  a  paper  with 
the  confession  marked  and  from  that  day  had  lost 
all  trace  of  him.  The  convict  made  this  comment 
in  defence  of  the  silence  of  the  accomplice: 

"He  wouldn't  be  such  a  fool  as  to  come  forward 
and  incriminate  himself  after  Shannon's  experi- 
ence." 

Convicts  in  several  States  were  aware  of 
Shannon's  fruitless  effort  to  right  a  wrong,  and 
knew  of  the  punishment  brought  upon  himself 
by  his  attempt.  The  outcome  of  the  occurrence 
must  have  been  regarded  as  a  warning  to  other 
convicts  who  might  be  prompted  to  honest  con- 
fession in  behalf  of  another. 

At  that  time  I  had  never  seen  George  Brett, 
and  not  until  later  was  I  in  communication  with 

215 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

his  lawyers.  But  I  was  convinced  that  only  from 
convicts  could  evidence  verifying  Shannon's  con- 
fession be  gleaned. 

As  far  as  I  know,  nothing  more  connected  with 
that  crime  has  ever  come  to  light.  And  even  to- 
day there  is  doubtless  a  division  of  opinion  among 
those  best  informed.  Finding  there  was  nothing 
I  could  do  in  the  matter,  my  interest  became 
centred  in  the  study  of  the  man  Shannon.  He 
was  an  interesting  study  from  the  purely  psycho- 
logical side,  still  more  so  in  the  gradual  revelation 
of  his  real  inner  life. 

It  is  difficult  to  reconcile  Shannon's  life  of 
action  with  his  life  of  thought,  for  he  was  a  man 
of  intellect,  a  student  and  a  thinker.  His  use  of 
English  was  always  correct.  The  range  of  his 
reading  was  wide,  including  the  best  fiction, 
philosophy,  science,  and,  more  unusual,  the  Eng- 
lish essayists — Addison,  Steele,  and  other  con- 
tributors to  The  Spectator.  The  true  philosopher 
is  shown  in  the  following  extract  from  one  of  his 
letters  to  me: 

"I  beg  you  not  to  think  that  I  consider  myself 
a  martyr  to  the  cause  of  truth.  That  my  state- 
ment was  rejected  takes  nothing  from  the  naked 
fact,  but  simply  proves  the  failure  of  conditions 

216 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

by  which  it  was  to  be  established  as  such.  It 
did  not  come  within  the  rules  of  acceptance  in 
these  things,  consequently  it  was  not  accepted. 
This  is  a  world  of  method.  Things  should  be  in 
their  place.  People  do  not  go  to  a  fish-monger 
for  diamonds,  nor  to  a  prison  for  truth.  I  recog- 
nize the  incongruity  of  my  position  and  submit 
to  the  inevitable." 

In  explanation  of  his  reception  of  my  first  call 
he  writes: 

"I  don't  think  that  at  first  I  quite  understood 
the  nature  of  your  call — it  was  so  unexpected. 
If  my  meaning  in  what  I  said  was  obscure  it  was 
because  in  thinking  and  brooding  too  much  one 
becomes  unable  to  talk  and  gradually  falls  into  a 
state  where  words  seem  unnatural.  And  these 
prison  thoughts  are  terrible.  In  their  uselessness 
they  are  like  spiders  building  cobwebs  in  the 
brain,  clouding  it  and  clogging  it  beyond  repair. 
I  try  to  use  imagination  as  a  drug  to  fill  my  mind 
with  a  fanciful  contentment  that  I  can  know  in 
no  other  way.  When  I  was  a  child  I  used  to 
dream  and  speculate  in  anticipation  of  the  world 
that  was  coming.  Now  I  do  the  same,  but  for  a 
different  reason — to  make  me  forget  the  detest- 
able period  of  fact  that  has  intervened. 

217 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

"So  when  I  am  not  reading  or  sleeping,  and 
when  my  work  may  be  performed  mechanically 
and  with  least  mental  exertion,  I  live  away  from 
myself  and  surroundings  as  much  as  possible.  I 
was  in  a  condition  something  like  this  at  the  time 
of  your  call.  A  dreamer  dislikes  at  best  to  be 
awakened  and  in  a  situation  like  mine  it  is  es- 
pecially trying.  While  talking  in  this  way  I 
must  beg  pardon,  for  I  did  really  appreciate  your 
visit  and  felt  more  human  after  it.  I  would  not 
have  you  infer  from  this  that  the  slightest  imagi- 
nation entered  into  my  story  of  that  unfortunate 
affair.  I  would  it  were  so;  but  if  it  is  a  fact  that 
I  exist,  all  that  I  related  is  just  as  true." 

His  choice  of  Schopenhauer  as  a  friend  illus- 
trates the  homoeopathic  principle  of  like  curing 
like. 

"Schopenhauer  is  an  old  friend  and  favorite  of 
mine.  Very  often  when  I  am  getting  wretchedly 
blue  and  when  everything  as  seen  through  my 
eyes  is  wearing  a  most  rascally  tinge,  I  derive  an 
immense  amount  of  comfort  and  consolation  by 
thinking  how  much  worse  they  have  appeared  to 
Schopenhauer."  In  other  words,  the  great  pes- 
simist served  to  produce  a  healthy  reaction. 

But  this  reaction  was  but  for  the  hour.  All 
218 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

through  Shannon's  letters  there  runs  a  vein  of 
the  bitterest  pessimism.  He  distrusted  all  forms 
of  religion  and  arraigns  the  prison  chaplains  in 
these  words: 

"I  have  never  met  a  class  of  men  who  appear 
to  know  less  of  the  spiritual  nature  or  the  wants 
of  their  flocks.  It  is  strange  to  me  that  men,  who 
might  so  easily  gather  material  for  the  finest 
practical  lessons,  surrounded  as  they  are  by  real 
life  experiences  and  illustrations  by  which  they 
might  well  teach  that  crime  does  not  pay  either  in 
coin  or  happiness,  that  they  will  ignore  all  this 
and  rack  their  brains  to  produce  elaborate  theo- 
logical discourses  founded  upon  some  sentence  of 
a  fisherman  who  existed  two  thousand  years  ago, 
to  paralyze  and  mystify  a  lot  of  poor  plain  horse 
thieves  and  burglars.  What  prisoners  are  in  need 
of  is  a  man  able  to  preach  natural,  every-day 
common  sense,  with  occasionally  a  little  humor 
or  an  agreeable  story  or  incident  to  illustrate  a 
moral.  It  seems  to  me  if  I  were  to  turn  preacher 
I  would  try  and  study  the  simple  character  of  the 
great  master  as  it  is  handed  down  to  us." 

It  strikes  me  that  prison  chaplains  would  do 
well  to  heed  this  convict  point  of  view  of  their 
preaching. 

219 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

I  do  not  recall  that  Shannon  ever  made  a  criti- 
cism upon  the  administration  of  the  prison  of 
which  he  was  then  an  inmate,  but  he  gives  free 
expression  to  his  opinion  of  our  general  system  of 
imprisonment.  He  had  been  studying  the  re- 
ports of  a  prison  congress  recently  in  session 
where  various  "reformatory  measures"  had  been 
discussed,  or,  to  use  his  expression,  "expatiated 
upon,"  and  writes: 

"I  wish  to  make  a  few  remarks  from  personal 
observation  upon  this  subject  of  prison  reform. 
I  will  admit,  to  begin  with,  that  upon  the  ground 
of  protection  to  society,  the  next  best  thing  to 
hanging  a  criminal  is  to  put  him  in  prison,  pro- 
viding you  keep  him  there;  but  if  you  seek  his 
reformation  it  is  the  worst  thing  you  can  do  with 
him.  Convicts  generally  are  not  philosophers, 
neither  are  they  men  of  pure  thought  or  deep  re- 
ligious feelings.  They  are  not  all  sufficient  to 
themselves,  and  for  this  reason  confinement  never 
did,  never  can  and  never  will  have  a  good  effect 
upon  them. 

"I  have  known  hundreds  of  men,  young  and 
old,  who  have  served  time  in  prison.  I  have  known 
many  of  them  to  grow  crafty  in  prison  and  upon 
release  to  employ  their  peculiar  talents  in  some 

220 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

other  line  of  business,  safer  but  not  less  degrading 
to  themselves;  but  I  never  knew  one  to  have 
been  made  a  better  man  by  prison  discipline; — 
those  who  reformed  did  so  through  other  influ- 
ences. 

"It  may  be  a  good  prison  or  a  bad  one,  with 
discipline  lax  or  rigorous,  but  the  effect,  though 
different,  is  never  good:  it  never  can  be.  Crime 
is  older  than  prisons.  According  to  best  accounts 
it  began  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  but  God — who 
knew  human  nature — instead  of  shutting  up  Adam 
and  Eve  separately,  drove  them  out  into  the 
world  where  they  could  exercise  their  minds 
hustling  for  themselves.  Since  then  there  has 
been  but  one  system  that  reformed  a  man  without 
killing  him,  namely,  transportation. 

"This  system,  instead  of  leaving  a  bad  man  in 
prison,  to  saturate  himself  with  his  own  poison, 
sent  him  to  a  distant  country,  where  under  new 
conditions,  and  with  something  to  work  and  hope 
for,  he  could  harmlessly  dissipate  that  poison 
among  the  wilds  of  nature.  It  may  be  no  other 
system  is  possible;  that  the  world  is  getting  too 
densely  populated  to  admit  of  transportation; 
or  that  society  owes  nothing  to  one  who  has 
broken  her  laws.  I  write  this,  not  as  £an 

221 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Echo  from  a  Living  Tomb,'  but  as  plain  common 
sense."* 

Personal  pride,  one  of  the  very  elements  of  the 
man's  nature,  kept  him  from  ever  uttering  a  com- 
plaint of  individual  hardships;  but  the  mere  fact 
of  confinement,  the  lack  of  air,  space,  freedom  of 
movement  and  action,  oppressed  him  as  if  the 
iron  bars  were  actually  pressing  against  his  spirit. 
His  one  aim  was  to  find  some  Lethe  in  which  he 
could  drown  memory  and  consciousness  of  self. 
In  all  the  years  of  his  manhood  there  seemed  to 
have  been  no  sunny  spot  in  which  memory  could 
find  a  resting-place. 

From  first  to  last  his  misdirection  of  life  had 
been  such  a  frightful  blunder;  even  in  its  own  line 
such  a  dismal  failure.  His  boasted  "fine  art"  of 
burglary  had  landed  him  in  the  ranks  of  mur- 
derers. He  had  despised  cowardice  and  yet  at 
the  critical  hour  in  the  destiny  of  another  he  had 
proven  himself  a  coward.  And  when  by  complete 
self-sacrifice  he  had  sought  to  right  the  wrong  the 
sacrifice  had  been  in  vain. 

*  This  letter  was  written  twenty-five  years  ago.  The  logic  of 
Shannon's  argument  is  unquestionably  sound.  The  futility  of  im- 
prisonment as  a  reformatory  agent  is  now  widely  recognized.  But 
better  than  transportation  is  the  system  of  conditional  liberation 
of  men  after  conviction  now  receiving  favorable  consideration — even 
tentative  adoption — in  many  States. 

222 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

Understanding  something  of  the  world  in  which 
he  lived,  I  suggested  the  study  of  a  new  language 
as  a  mental  occupation  requiring  concentration 
on  a  line  entirely  disconnected  from  his  past. 
He  gladly  adopted  my  suggestion  and  began  the 
study  of  German;  but  it  was  all  in  vain — he  could 
not  escape  from  himself. 

He  had  managed  to  keep  so  brave  a  front  in  his 
letters  that  I  was  unaware  that  the  man  was 
completely  breaking  down  until  the  spring  morn- 
ing when  we  had  our  last  interview. 

There  was  in  his  face  the  unmistakable  look  of 
the  man  who  is  doomed — so  many  of  my  prisoners 
died.  His  remorse  was  like  a  living  thing  that  had 
eaten  into  his  life — a  very  wolf  within  his  breast. 
He  was  no  longer  impassive,  but  fairly  writhing 
in  mental  agony.  He  did  not  seem  to  know  that 
he  was  dying;  he  certainly  did  not  care.  His  one 
thought  was  for  Brett  and  the  far-reaching,  ir- 
reparable wrong  that  Brett  had  suffered  through 
him.  When  I  said  that  I  thought  the  fate  of  the 
innocent  man  in  prison  was  not  so  dreadful  as 
that  of  the  guilty  man  Shannon  exclaimed:  "You 
are  mistaken.  I  don't  see  how  it  is  possible  for  a 
man  unjustly  imprisoned  to  believe  in  any  jus- 
tice, human  or  divine,  or  in  any  God  above," 

223 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

and  he  continued  with  an  impassioned  appeal  on 
behalf  of  innocent  prisoners  which  left  a  deep  im- 
pression with  me.  In  his  own  being  he  seemed  to 
be  actually  experiencing  at  once  the  fate  of  the 
innocent  victim  of  injustice  and  of  the  guilty 
man  suffering  just  punishment.  He  spoke  of  his 
intense  spiritual  loneliness,  which  human  sym- 
pathy was  powerless  to  reach,  and  of  how  thank- 
ful he  should  be  if  he  could  find  light  or  hope  in 
any  religion;  but  he  could  not  believe  in  any  God 
of  truth  or  justice  while  Brett  was  left  in  prison. 
A  soul  more  completely  desolate  it  is  impossible 
to  imagine. 

My  next  letter  from  Shannon  was  written  from 
the  hospital,  and  expresses  the  expectation  of 
being  "all  right  again  in  a  few  days";  farther  on 
in  the  letter  come  these  words: 

"I  do  believe  in  a  future  life.  Without  this 
hope  and  its  consoling  influence  life  would  scarcely 
be  worth  living.  I  believe  that  all  the  men  who 
have  ever  died,  Atheists  or  whatever  they  pro- 
fessed to  be,  did  so  with  the  hope  more  or  less 
sustaining  them,  of  awakening  to  a  future  life. 
This  hope  is  implanted  by  nature  universally  in 
the  human  breast  and  it  is  not  unlikely  to  sup- 
pose that  it  has  some  meaning." 

224 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

A  few  weeks  later  I  received  a  line  from  the 
warden  telling  me  of  the  death  of  Ellis  Shannon, 
and  from  the  prison  hospital  was  sent  me  a  little 
volume  of  translations  from  Socrates  which  had 
been  Shannon's  companion  in  his  last  days.  A 
slip  of  paper  between  the  leaves  marked  Socrates's 
reflections  on  death  and  immortality.  The  re- 
port of  one  of  the  hospital  nurses  to  me  was: 

"Shannon  had  consumption,  but  he  died  of 
grief."  It  is  not  often  that  one  dies  of  a  broken 
heart  outside  the  pages  of  fiction  and  romance, 
but  medical  authority  assures  us  that  it  some- 
times happens. 

Up  to  this  time  I  had  never  seen  George  Brett, 
but  after  the  death  of  Shannon  we  had  one  long 
interview.  What  first  struck  me  was  the  re- 
markable similarity  between  the  voices  of  Brett 
and  Shannon,  as  supposed  identification  of  the 
voice  of  Brett  with  that  of  the  burglar  had  been 
accepted  as  evidence  at  the  trial.  My  general 
impression  of  the  man  was  wholly  favorable.  He 
was  depressed  and  discouraged,  but  responsive, 
frank,  and  unstudied  in  all  that  he  said.  When 
he  mentioned  the  man  shot  in  the  burglary  I 
watched  him  closely;  his  whole  manner  brightened 
as  he  said: 

225 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

"  Why,  he  was  one  of  the  best  men  in  the  world, 
a  man  that  little  children  loved.  He  was  good  to 
every  one." 

"And  you  could  never  speak  of  that  man  as 
you  are  speaking  now  if  you  had  taken  his  life," 
was  my  inward  comment. 

Brett's  attitude  toward  Shannon  was  free  from 
any  shade  of  resentment,  but  what  most  impressed 
me  was  that  Shannon's  belief  that  the  unjust 
conviction  of  Brett  and  his  own  fruitless  effort 
to  right  the  wrong  must  make  it  impossible  for 
Brett  ever  to  believe  in  a  just  God — in  other 
words,  that  the  most  cruel  injury  to  Brett  was 
the  spiritual  injury.  This  belief  proved  to  be  with- 
out foundation.  George  Brett  had  not  been  a 
religious  man,  but  in  Shannon  he  saw  that  truth 
and  honor  were  more  than  life,  stronger  than  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation;  and  he  could  hardly 
escape  from  the  belief  that  divine  justice  itself 
was  the  impelling  power  back  of  the  impulse 
prompting  Shannon  to  confession.  In  the  strange 
action  and  interaction  of  one  life  upon  another, 
in  the  final  summing  up  of  the  relation  of  these 
two  men,  it  seemed  to  have  been  given  to  Shannon 
to  touch  the  deeper  springs  of  spiritual  life  in 
Brett,  to  reveal  to  him  something  of  the  eternal 
verities  of  existence. 

226 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

And  truth  crushed  to  earth  did  rise  again;  for 
not  long  after  the  death  of  Shannon,  in  the  eighth 
year  of  his  imprisonment,  George  Brett  was 
pardoned,  with  the  public  statement  that  he  had 
been  convicted  on  doubtful  evidence  and  that 
the  confession  of  Shannon  had  been  accepted  in 
proof  of  his  innocence. 

No  adequate  compensation  can  ever  be  made 
to  one  who  has  suffered  unjust  imprisonment, 
but  there  are  already  indications  of  the  dawn  of  a 
to-morrow  when  the  state,  in  common  honesty, 
will  feel  bound  to  make  at  least  financial  restitu- 
tion to  those  who  have  been  the  victims  of  such 
injustice. 


227 


CHAPTER  XII 

THERE  is  another  chapter  to  my  experience 
with  prisoners;  it  is  the  story  of  what  they 
have  done  for  me,  for  they  have  kept  the  balance 
of  give  and  take  very  even  between  us.  I  have 
an  odd  collection  of  souvenirs  and  keepsakes, 
but,  incongruous  as  the  different  articles  are,  one 
thread  connects  them  all;  from  the  coarse,  stubby 
pair  of  little  mittens  suggesting  the  hand  of  a 
six-year-old  country  boy  to  the  flask  of  rare  Ve- 
netian glass  in  the  dull  Oriental  tones  dear  to 
the  aesthetic  soul;  from  the  hammock  that  swings 
under  the  maple-trees  to  the  diminutive  heart  in 
delicately  veined  onyx,  designed  to  be  worn  as  a 
pendant. 

The  mittens  came  from  Jackson  Currant,  a 
friendly  soul  who  unravelled  the  one  pair  of 
mittens  allowed  him  for  the  winter,  contrived  to 
possess  himself  of  a  piece  of  wire  from  which  he 
fashioned  a  hook,  and  evenings  in  his  cell  cro- 
cheted for  me  a  pair  of  mittens.  Funny  little 
things  they  were,  but  a  real  gift,  for  this  prisoner 

228 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

took  from  himself  and  gave  to  me  the  one  thing 
he  had  to  give. 

Another  gift  which  touched  me  came  from  an 
old  Rocky  Mountain  trapper — then  a  prisoner 
for  life.  His  one  most  cherished  possession  was  a 
copy  of  "A  Day  in  Athens  with  Socrates,"  sent 
him  by  the  translator.  After  keeping  the  precious 
book  for  three  years  and  learning  its  contents  by 
heart,  he  sent  it  to  me  as  a  birthday  gift  and  I 
found  it  among  other  birthday  presents  one 
February  morning.  Then  there  is  the  cherry  box 
that  holds  my  stationery,  with  E.  A.'s  initials 
carved  in  the  cover;  E.  A.,  who  is  reclaiming  his 
future  from  all  shadow  of  his  past.  It  was  E.  A. 
who  introduced  me  to  my  Welsh  boy,  Alfred 
Allen,  and  it  was  Alfred  who  opened  my  heart  to 
all  the  street  waifs  in  the  universe. 

In  many  ways  my  life  has  been  enriched  by 
my  prisoners.  Most  delightful  social  affiliations, 
most  stimulating  intellectual  influences,  and  some 
of  the  warmest  friendships  of  my  life,  by  odd 
chains  of  circumstances  have  developed  from  my 
prison  interests. 

Almost  any  friend  can  give  us  material  gifts — 
the  gift  of  things — the  friend  who  widens  our 
social  relations  or  broadens  our  interests  does  us 

229 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

far  better  service;  but  it  is  the  rare  friend  who 
opens  our  spiritual  perception  to  whom  we  are 
most  indebted.  For  through  the  ages  has  been 
pursued  the  quest  of  some  proof  that  man  is  a 
spiritual  being,  some  evidence  that  what  we  call 
the  soul  has  its  origin  beyond  the  realm  of  the 
material;  the  learning  of  all  time  has  failed  to 
satisfy  this  quest;  and  the  wealth  of  the  world 
cannot  purchase  one  fragment  of  such  proof. 

And  yet  it  is  to  one  of  my  prisoners  that  I  owe 
the  gift  of  an  hour  in  which  the  spirit  of  man 
seemed  the  one  vital  fact  of  his  existence,  the  one 
thing  beyond  the  reach  of  death;  and  time  has 
given  priceless  value  to  that  hour. 

I  met  James  Wilson  in  the  first  years  of  my 
prison  acquaintance,  and  it  was  long  before  it 
occurred  to  me  that  under  later  legislation  he 
would  have  been  classed  as  an  habitual  criminal. 
I  have  often  wondered  at  the  power  of  his  per- 
sonality; it  must  have  been  purely  the  result  of 
innate  qualities.  He  was  brave,  he  was  generous, 
he  was  loyalty  itself;  and  his  sympathies  were 
responsive  as  those  of  a  woman.  He  would  have 
been  an  intrepid  soldier,  a  venturesome  explorer, 
a  chivalrous  knight;  but  in  the  confusion  of  human 
life  the  boy  was  shoved  to  the  wrong  track  and 

230 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

having  the  momentum  of  youth  and  strong  vital- 
ity he  rushed  recklessly  onward  into  the  course 
of  a  Robin  Hood;  living  in  an  age  when  those  who 
come  into  collision  with  the  social  forces  of  law 
and  order  are  called  criminals,  his  career  in  that 
direction  fortunately  was  of  short  duration. 

Had  Wilson  not  been  arrested  in  his  downward 
course  he  might  never  have  come  into  possession 
of  the  self  whom  I  knew  so  well,  that  true  self  at 
last  so  clearly  victorious  over  adverse  circum- 
stances. In  this  sketch  I  have  not  used  Wilson's 
letters;  they  were  so  purely  personal,  so  wholly 
of  his  inner  life,  that  to  give  them  to  the  public 
seemed  desecration. 

I  can  give  but  one  glimpse  of  his  childhood. 
When  he  was  a  very  little  boy  he  sat  on  his  father's 
knee  and  looked  up  into  kind  and  loving  gray 
eyes.  The  father  died,  and  the  son  remembered 
him  always  as  kind  and  loving. 

The  loss  of  his  father  changed  the  course  of 
Wilson's  life.  The  mother  formed  other  ties; 
the  boy  was  one  too  many,  and  left  home  alto- 
gether as  soon  as  he  was  old  enough  to  shift  for 
himself.  He  went  honestly  to  work,  where  so 
many  boys  along  the  Mississippi  Valley  are 
morally  ruined — on  a  river-boat. 

231 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

After  a  time  things  began  to  go  wrong  with 
him.  I  don't  know  whether  the  injury  was  real 
or  fancied,  but  the  boy  believed  himself  mali- 
ciously injured;  and  in  the  blind  passion  follow- 
ing he  left  the  river,  taking  with  him  money  that 
belonged  to  the  man  who  had  angered  him. 
Wilson  had  meant  to  square  the  score,  to  balance 
wrong  with  wrong;  but  his  revenge  recoiled  upon 
himself  and  at  sixteen  he  was  a  thief  and  a  fugitive. 
Before  the  impetus  of  that  moral  movement  was 
exhausted  he  was  in  the  penitentiary — "one  of 
the  most  vigorous  and  fine-looking  men  in  the 
prison,  tall  and  splendidly  built,"  so  said  another 
prisoner  who  knew  him  at  that  time. 

At  the  expiration  of  his  three  years'  sentence 
Wilson  began  work  in  a  Saint  Louis  printing- 
office,  opening,  so  he  believed,  a  new  chapter  in 
life.  He  was  then  twenty  years  of  age. 

During  that  year  all  through  the  West — if  the 
Mississippi  region  can  still  be  called  West — there 
were  serious  labor  troubles.  Men  were  dis- 
charged from  every  branch  of  employment  where 
they  could  be  spared;  and  the  day  came  when 
all  the  "new  hands"  in  the  printing-office  where 
Wilson  worked  were  turned  off. 

Wilson  had  saved  something  from  his  earnings, 
232 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

and  while  his  money  lasted  he  lived  honestly, 
seeking  employment,  but  the  money  was  gone 
before  he  found  employment.  Outside  the  cities 
the  country  was  overrun  with  tramps;  tempta- 
tions to  lawlessness  were  multiplied;  starvation, 
stealing,  or  begging  seemed  the  only  pathway 
open  to  many.  None  starved;  there  was  little 
choice  between  the  other  alternatives.  Jails  and 
prisons  were  crowded  with  inmates,  some  of 
whom  felt  themselves  fortunate  in  being  pro- 
vided with  food  and  shelter  even  at  the  cost  of 
liberty.  "I  have  gone  hungry  so  many  days  and 
slept  on  the  ground  so  many  nights  that  the 
thought  of  a  prison  seems  something  like  home," 
was  a  remark  made  to  me.  "The  world  owes  me 
a  living"  was  a  thought  that  came  in  the  form  of 
temptation  to  many  a  man  who  could  get  no 
honest  work. 

After  Wilson  had  been  out  of  employment  for 
two  or  three  months  there  occurred  a  great  com- 
motion near  a  small  town  within  fifty  miles  of 
Saint  Louis.  Stores  had  been  broken  into  and 
property  carried  off,  and  a  desperate  attempt  was 
made  to  capture  the  burglars,  who  were  supposed 
to  be  in  that  vicinity.  A  man  who  had  gone  to  a 
stream  of  water  was  arrested  and  identified  as  be- 

233 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

longing  to  the  gang.  He  was  ordered  to  betray  his 
accomplices;  he  refused  absolutely.  The  reckless 
courage  in  his  nature  once  aroused,  the  "honor" 
observed  among  thieves  was  his  inevitable  course. 
A  rope  was  brought,  and  Wilson  was  taken  to  a 
tree  where  the  story  of  his  life  would  doubtless 
have  ended  had  not  a  shout  from  others,  who  were 
still  searching,  proclaimed  the  discovery  of  the 
retreat  of  his  companions.  Wilson  and  Davis, 
the  two  leaders,  were  sentenced  each  to  four 
years  in  the  penitentiary. 

Defeated,  dishonored,  penniless,  and  friendless, 
Wilson  found  himself  again  in  prison;  this  time 
under  the  more  than  double  disgrace  of  being  a 
"second-term"  man,  with  consciousness  of  having 
deliberately  made  a  choice  of  crime.  He  was  an 
avowed  infidel,  and  his  impetuous,  unsubdued 
nature  was  at  war  with  life  and  the  world.  For 
two  years  he  lived  on  in  this  way;  then  his  health 
began  to  fail  under  the  strain  of  work  and  con- 
finement. 

With  the  loss  of  strength  his  heart  grew  harder 
and  more  desperate.  One  day  his  old  reckless- 
ness broke  out  in  open  revolt  against  prison 
authority.  He  was  punished  by  being  sent  to 
the  "solitary,"  where  the  temperature  in  summer 

234 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

is  much  lower  than  that  of  the  shops  where  the 
men  work;  he  took  cold,  a  hemorrhage  of  the 
lungs  resulted,  and  he  was  sent  to  the  prison  hos- 
pital. 

There,  on  a  Sunday  morning  two  months  later, 
I  first  met  Wilson.  I  think  it  was  the  glance  of 
the  dark-gray  eyes  under  long,  sweeping  black 
lashes  that  first  attracted  me.  But  it  was  the 
expression  of  the  face,  the  quiet,  dignified  courtesy 
of  manner,  and  the  candid  statement  of  his  his- 
tory that  made  the  deeper  impression.  Simply 
and  briefly  he  gave  me  the  outlines  of  his  past; 
and  he  spoke  with  deep,  concentrated  bitterness 
of  the  crushing,  terrible  life  in  prison.  His  un- 
spoken loneliness — he  had  lost  all  trace  of  his 
mother — and  his  illness,  almost  ignored  but 
evident,  appealed  to  my  sympathy  and  prompted 
me  to  offer  to  write  to  him.  He  thought  it  would 
be  a  pleasure  to  receive  letters,  but  assured  me 
that  he  could  write  nothing  worth  reading  in  re- 
turn. 

Long  afterward  I  asked  what  induced  him  to 
reply  to  my  questions  so  frankly  and  sincerely. 
His  answer  was:  " Because  I  knew  if  I  lied  to  you, 
it  would  make  it  harder  for  you  to  believe  the 
next  man  you  talked  with,  who  might  tell  you 

235 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  truth."  During  all  that  Sunday  afternoon 
and  evening  Wilson  remained  in  my  thoughts, 
and  the  next  afternoon — Hallowe'en,  as  it  hap- 
pened— found  me  again  at  the  hospital.  I  stopped 
for  a  few  moments  at  the  bedside  of  a  young 
prisoner  who  was  flushed  with  hectic  fever  and 
wildly  rebellious  over  the  thought  of  dying  in 
prison — he  lived  to  die  an  honest  man  in  freedom, 
in  the  dress  of  a  civilized  being  and  not  in  the 
barbarous,  zebra-like  suit  then  worn  in  the  prison. 
I  remained  for  a  longer  time  beside  the  bed  of  a 
man  who  was  serving  a  sentence  of  imprisonment 
for  life  for  a  crime  of  which  he  was  innocent. 
After  twelve  years  his  innocence  was  proved;  he 
was  released  a  crippled  invalid,  with  no  means  of 
support  except  by  hands  robbed  of  their  power 
to  work.  The  State  makes  no  reparation  for  an 
unspeakable  wrong  like  this,  far  more  cruel  than 
death. 

When  I  turned  to  look  for  Wilson  he  was 
sitting  apart  from  the  other  men,  with  a  vacant 
chair  beside  him.  Joining  him  beside  that  west 
window,  flooded  with  the  golden  light  of  an 
autumn  sunset,  I  took  the  vacant  seat  intended 
for  me;  and  the  hour  that  followed  so  influenced 
Wilson's  future  that  he  adopted  that  day — 

236 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Hallowe'en — as  his  birthday.  He  knew  the  year 
but  not  the  month  in  which  he  was  born. 

I  have  not  the  slightest  recollection  of  what  I 
said  while  we  sat  beside  the  window.  But  even 
now  I  can  see  Wilson's  face  as  he  listened  with 
silent  attention,  not  meeting  my  eyes.  I  think 
I  spoke  of  his  personal  responsibility  for  the  life 
he  had  lived.  I  am  certain  that  I  said  nothing 
about  swearing  and  that  I  asked  no  promises. 

But  thoughts  not  in  my  mind  were  suggested 
to  him.  For  when  I  ceased  speaking  he  raised 
his  eyes,  and  looking  at  me  intently  he  said:  "I 
can't  promise  to  be  a  Christian;  my  life  has  been 
too  bad  for  that;  but  I  want  to  promise  you  that 
I  will  give  up  swearing  and  try  to  have  pure 
thoughts.  I  can  promise  you  that,  because  these 
things  lie  in  my  own  power;  but  there's  too  much 
wickedness  between  me  and  God  for  me  ever  to 
be  a  Christian." 

His  only  possession  was  the  kingdom  of  his 
thoughts;  without  reservation  it  was  offered  to 
his  friend,  and  with  the  sure  understanding  that 
she  would  value  it. 

It  was  a  surprise  when  I  received  Wilson's  first 
letter  to  see  the  unformed  writing  and  the  un- 
certain spelling;  but  the  spirit  of  the  man  could 

237 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

be  traced,  even  through  the  inadequate  medium. 
In  earnestness  and  simplicity  he  was  seeking  to 
fulfil  his  promise,  finding,  as  he  inevitably  must, 
that  he  had  committed  himself  to  more  than  his 
promise.  It  was  not  long  before  he  wrote  that 
he  had  begun  a  new  life  altogether  "for  your 
sake  and  for  my  own."  His  "thoughts"  gave 
him  great  trouble,  for  the  old  channels  were  still 
open,  and  his  cell-mate's  mind  was  steeped  in 
wickedness.  But  he  made  the  best  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  instead  of  seeking  to  ward  off  evil  he 
took  the  higher  course  of  sharing  his  own  better 
thoughts  with  his  cell-mate,  over  whom  he  ac- 
quired a  strong  influence.  Steadfastly  he  sought 
to  overcome  evil  with  good.  Very  slowly  grew  his 
confidence  in  himself;  and  his  great  anxiety 
seemed  to  be  lest  I  should  think  him  better  than 
he  was. 

Like  all  persons  with  tuberculosis  Wilson  was 
sanguine  of  recovery;  and  as  he  went  back  to 
work  in  one  of  the  shops  the  day  after  I  left,  and 
always  wrote  hopefully,  I  took  it  for  granted  that 
his  health  was  improving. 

Six  months  only  passed  before  we  met  again, 
and  I  was  wholly  unprepared  for  the  startling 
change  in  Wilson's  appearance.  His  cough  and 

238 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

the  shortness  of  his  breath  were  distressing.  But 
the  poor  fellow  was  so  delighted  to  see  me  that 
he  tried  to  set  his  own  condition  entirely  aside. 

We  had  a  long  talk  in  the  twilight  of  that 
lovely  May  evening,  and  again  we  were  seated 
beside  a  window,  through  which  the  light  and 
sounds  of  spring  came  in.  I  learned  then  how 
hard  life  was  for  that  dying  man.  He  was  still 
subject  to  the  strict  discipline  of  the  most  strictly 
disciplined  prison  in  the  country:  compelled  to 
rise  at  five  in  the  morning  and  go  through  the 
hurried  but  exact  preparations  for  the  day  re- 
quired of  well  men.  He  was  kept  on  the  coarse 
prison  fare,  forced  to  march  breathlessly  in  the 
rapid  lock-step  of  the  gang  of  strong  men  with 
whom  he  worked,  and  kept  at  work  in  the  shop 
all  through  the  long  days.  The  strain  on  nerve 
and  will  and  physical  strength  was  never  relaxed. 

These  things  he  told  me,  and  they  were  all 
true;  but  he  told  me  also  better  things,  not  so 
hard  for  me  to  know.  He  gave  me  the  history  of 
his  moral  struggles  and  victories.  He  told  me  of 
the  "comfort"  my  letters  had  been  to  him;  his 
whole  heart  was  opened  to  me  in  the  faith  that 
I  would  understand  and  believe  him.  It  was  then 
that  he  told  me  he  was  trying  to  live  by  some 

239 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

verses  he  had  learned;  and  in  answer  to  my  re- 
quest, hesitatingly,  and  with  breath  shortened 
still  more  by  embarrassment,  he  repeated  the 
lines : 

"I  stand  upon  the  Mount  of  God, 

With  gladness  in  my  soul, 
I  hear  the  storms  in  vale  beneath — 
I  hear  the  thunder  roll. 

"But  I  am  calm  with  Thee,  my  God, 

Beneath  these  glorious  skies, 
And  to  the  height  on  which  I  stand 
No  storm  nor  cloud  can  rise." 

He  was  wholly  unconscious  that  there  was  any- 
thing unusual  in  his  reaching  up  from  the  depths 
of  sin,  misery,  and  degradation  to  the  spiritual 
heights  of  eternal  light.  He  rather  reproached 
himself  for  having  left  the  valley  of  repentance, 
seeming  to  feel  that  he  had  escaped  mental  suffer- 
ing that  was  deserved;  although  he  admitted: 
"The  night  after  you  left  me  in  October,  when  I 
went  back  to  my  cell,  the  tears  were  just  running 
down  my  face — if  that  could  be  called  repentance." 
At  the  close  of  our  interview,  as  Wilson  was 
going  out,  he  passed  another  prisoner  on  the  way 
in  to  see  me. 

240 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

"Do  you  know  Wilson?"  was  Newton's  greet- 
ing as  he  approached  me. 

"Do  you  know  Wilson?"  was  my  question  in 
reply. 

Newton  had  taken  offence  at  something  in  one 
of  my  letters  and  it  was  to  make  peace  with  him 
that  I  had  planned  the  interview,  but  all  misun- 
derstanding evaporated  completely  in  our  com- 
mon regret  and  anxiety  about  Wilson;  for  my 
feeling  was  fully  shared  by  this  man  who — well, 
he  was  pretty  thoroughly  hardened  on  all  other 
subjects.  But  here  the  chord  of  tenderness  was 
touched;  and  all  his  hardness  and  resentment 
melted  in  the  relief  of  finding  some  one  who  felt 
as  he  did  on  the  subject  nearest  his  heart. 

"I  have  worked  beside  Wilson  in  the  shop  for 
two  years,  and  I  have  never  loved  any  man  as  I 
have  grown  to  love  him,"  he  said.  "And  it  has 
been  so  terrible  to  see  him  dying  by  inches,  and 
kept  at  work  when  he  could  scarcely  stand." 
The  man  spoke  with  strong  emotion;  the  very 
depths  of  his  nature  were  stirred.  He  told  me 
all  about  this  friendship,  which  had  developed 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  conversation  be- 
tween convicts  was  supposed  to  be  confined  to 
necessary  communication  in  relation  to  work. 

241 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Side  by  side  they  had  worked  in  the  shop,  and  as 
Wilson's  strength  failed  Newton  managed  to  help 
him.  Newton's  praise  and  affection  really  counted 
for  something,  as  he  was  an  embittered  man  with 
small  faith  in  human  nature.  He  said  that  in  all 
his  life  nothing  had  been  so  hard  as  to  see  his 
friend  sinking  under  his  fate,  while  he  was  power- 
less to  interfere.  Newton  and  I  had  one  comfort, 
however,  hi  the  fact  that  Wilson's  sentence  was 
near  the  end.  In  justice  to  the  authorities  of  the 
prison  where  these  men  were  confined  I  wish  to 
state  that  dying  prisoners  were  usually  sent  to  the 
hospital.  Wilson's  was  an  exceptional  case  of 
hardship. 

Early  in  July  Wilson  was  released  from  prison. 
When  he  reached  Chicago  his  evident  weakness 
arrested  the  attention  of  a  passer-by,  who  hired 
a  boy  to  carry  his  bundle  and  see  him  to  his  des- 
tination. He  had  determined  to  try  to  support 
himself,  believing  that  freedom  would  bring  in- 
creased strength;  but  he  was  too  ill  to  work.  The 
doctor  whom  he  consulted  spoke  encouragingly, 
but  urged  the  necessity  of  rest  and  Minnesota 
air.  I  therefore  sent  him  a  pass  to  Minneapolis, 
and  the  route  was  by  way  of  my  own  home. 

Life  was  hard  on  Wilson,  but  it  gave  him  one 
242 


THE   MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

day  of  happiness  apart  from  poverty  or  crime, 
when  he  felt  himself  a  welcome  guest  in  the  home 
of  a  friend.  When  his  train  arrived  from  Chicago 
I  was  at  the  station  to  meet  him,  and  before 
driving  home  we  called  on  my  physician  that  I 
might  know  what  to  anticipate.  The  doctor 
commended  the  plan  for  the  climate  of  Minnesota, 
and  spoke  encouragingly  to  Wilson,  but  to  me 
privately  he  gave  the  fiat,  "No  hope." 

Wilson  spent  the  rest  of  that  day  in  the  library 
of  my  home,  and  all  the  afternoon  he  was  smiling. 
My  face  reflected  his  smiles,  but  I  could  not  for- 
get the  shadow  of  death  in  the  background.  We 
talked  of  many  things  that  afternoon;  the  breadth 
and  fairness  of  his  opinions  on  prison  matters,  the 
impersonal  way  in  which  he  was  able  to  consider 
the  subject,  surprised  me,  for  his  individual  ex- 
perience had  been  exceptionally  severe. 

When  weariness  came  into  his  eyes  and  his 
voice  I  suggested  a  little  music.  The  gayer  music 
did  not  so  much  appeal  to  him,  but  I  shall  never 
forget  the  man's  delight  in  the  sweet  and  restful 
cadences  of  Mendelssohn.  After  a  simple  tea 
served  Wilson  in  the  library  we  took  a  drive  into 
the  country,  where  the  invalid  enjoyed  the  lovely 
view  of  hills  and  valleys  wrapped  in  the  glow  of 

243 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  summer  sunset;  and  then  I  left  him  for  the 
night  at  a  comfortable  hotel. 

The  next  morning  Wilson  was  radiantly  happy, 
notwithstanding  "a  hard  night";  and  it  happened 
to  be  one  of  the  days  when  summer  does  her  best 
to  keep  us  in  love  with  life.  All  the  forenoon  we 
spent  under  a  great  maple-tree,  with  birds  in  the 
branches  and  blue  sky  overhead,  Wilson  aban- 
doning himself  to  the  simple  joy  of  living  and 
resting.  Wilson  was  a  fine-looking  man  in  citizen's 
dress,  his  regular  features  refined  and  spiritualized 
by  illness. 

There  were  preparations  to  be  made  for  Min- 
nesota and  the  suit-case  to  be  repacked,  and  what 
value  Wilson  placed  upon  the  various  articles  I 
contributed !  I  think  it  was  the  cake  of  scented 
soap — clearly  a  luxury — that  pleased  him  most, 
but  he  was  interested  in  every  single  thing,  and 
his  heart  was  warmed  by  the  cordial  friendliness 
of  my  mother,  who  added  her  own  contribution 
to  his  future  comfort.  His  one  regret  was  that 
he  had  nothing  to  give  us  in  return. 

But  time  was  on  the  wing,  and  the  morning 
slipped  by  all  too  rapidly,  as  the  hours  of  red-letter 
days  always  do,  and  the  afternoon  brought  the 
parting  at  the  train  for  Minneapolis.  Wilson 

244 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

lingered  beside  me  while  there  was  time,  then 
looking  gravely  into  my  eyes,  he  said:  "Good-by; 
I  hope  that  we  shall  meet  again — on  this  side." 
A  moment  later  the  moving  train  carried  him 
away  toward  the  north,  which  to  him  meant  the 
hope  of  health. 

Exhausted  by  the  journey  to  Minneapolis,  he 
at  once  applied  for  admission  to  a  Catholic  hos- 
pital, and  here  I  will  let  him  speak  for  himself, 
through  the  first  letter  that  I  received  after  he 
left  me. 

"DEAR  FRIEND: 

"I  am  now  in  the  hospital,  and  I  am  so  sleepy 
when  I  try  to  write  that  I  asked  one  of  the  sisters 
to  write  for  me. 

"I  felt  quite  weak  when  I  first  came  here,  but 
now  I  take  beef-tea,  and  I  feel  so  much  stronger,  I 
think  I  will  be  very  much  better  by  the  end  of 
this  month. 

"The  Mother  Superior  is  most  kind  and  calls 
me  her  boy  and  thinks  she  will  soon  have  me  quite 
well  again.  I  have  a  fine  room  to  myself,  and  I 
feel  most  happy  as  I  enjoy  the  beautiful  fresh  air 
from  the  Mississippi  River,  which  runs  quite 
near  me. 

245 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

"Dear  friend,  I  wish  you  were  here  to  enjoy  a 
few  days  and  see  how  happy  I  am." 

And  scrawled  below,  in  a  feeble  but  familiar 
handwriting,  were  the  words: 

"I  tried  to  write,  but  failed." 

Under  the  influence  of  the  sisters  Wilson  was 
led  back  to  the  church  into  which  he  had  been 
baptized,  and  although  he  did  not  accept  its 
limitations  he  found  great  comfort  in  the  sense 
of  protection  that  it  gave  him.  Rest  and  nursing 
and  the  magical  air  of  Minnesota  effected  such  an 
improvement  in  his  health  that  before  many 
weeks  Wilson  was  discharged  from  the  hospital. 

After  a  short  period  of  outdoor  work,  in  which 
he  tested  his  strength,  he  went  into  a  printing- 
office,  where,  for  a  month,  he  felt  himself  a  man 
among  men.  But  it  was  an  overambitious  and 
unwise  step — confinement  and  close  air  of  the 
office  were  more  than  he  could  endure,  and  with 
great  regret  he  gave  up  the  situation. 

Winter  was  setting  in  and  he  found  no  work 
that  he  could  do,  and  yet  thought  himself  too 
well  to  again  seek  admission  to  a  hospital.  The 
outlook  of  life  darkened,  for  there  seemed  to  be 
no  place  for  him  anywhere.  He  did  not  write  to 

246 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

me  during  that  time  of  uncertainty,  and  one  day, 
after  having  spent  three  nights  in  a  railroad 
station,  as  a  last  resort  he  asked  to  be  sent  to  the 
county  home  and  was  received  there;  after  that 
he  could  not  easily  obtain  admission  to  a  hospital. 

Western  county  homes  were  at  that  time  hard 
places;  in  some  respects  existence  there  was 
harder  than  in  the  prison,  where  restraint  and 
discipline  are  in  a  measure  a  protection,  securing 
a  man  undisturbed  possession  of  his  inner  life  and 
thoughts,  during  working  hours  at  least.  The 
ceaselessly  intrusive  life  of  the  home,  with  the 
lack  of  discipline  and  the  unrestrained  intercourse 
of  inmates,  with  the  idleness  and  the  dirt,  is  far 
more  demoralizing;  crime  itself  does  not  sap  self- 
respect  like  being  an  idle  pauper  among  paupers. 
All  this  could  be  read  between  the  lines  of  Wilson's 
letters. 

And  now  a  new  dread  was  taking  hold  of  him. 
All  his  hope  and  ambition  had  centred  in  the 
desire  to  be  good  for  this  life.  He  had  persistently 
shut  out  the  thought  of  death  as  the  one  thing 
that  would  prevent  his  realizing  this  desire. 
Nature  and  youth  clung  passionately  to  life,  and 
all  the  strength  of  his  will  was  nerved  to  resist  the 
advance  of  disease.  But  day  by  day  the  realiza- 

247 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

tion  that  life  was  slipping  from  him  forced  itself 
deeper  into  his  consciousness;  even  for  the  time 
discouraging  him  morally.  His  high  resolves 
seemed  of  no  avail.  It  was  all  of  no  use.  He  must 
die  a  pauper  with  no  chance  to  regain  his  lost 
manhood;  life  seemed  indeed  a  hopeless  failure. 
I  had  supplied  Wilson  with  paper  and  envelopes, 
stamped  and  addressed,  that  I  might  never  fail 
of  hearing  from  him  directly  or  through  others; 
but  there  came  an  interval  of  several  weeks  when 
I  heard  nothing,  although  writing  regularly. 
Perplexed,  as  well  as  anxious,  in  my  determina- 
tion to  break  the  silence  at  all  hazards,  I  wrote  a 
somewhat  peremptory  letter.  The  answer  came 
by  return  mail,  but  it  was  the  keeper  of  the  county 
home  who  wrote  that  Wilson  had  written  regularly 
and  that  he  was  very  unhappy  over  my  last  letter, 
adding: 

"He  says  that  if  this  room  was  filled  with 
money  it  would  not  tempt  him  to  neglect  his  best 
friend;  and  when  I  told  him  that  this  room  was 
pretty  big  and  would  hold  a  lot  of  money  he  said 
that  didn't  make  any  difference." 

I  could  not  be  reconciled  to  Wilson's  dying  in 
that  place,  and  when  the  spring  days  came  he  was 
sent  to  Chicago,  where  his  entrance  to  a  hospital 

248 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

had  been  arranged.  It  was  an  April  afternoon 
when  I  found  him  in  one  of  the  main  wards  of  the 
hospital,  a  large  room  flooded  with  sunshine  and 
fresh  air.  Young  women,  charming  in  their 
nurses'  uniform,  with  skilled  and  gentle  hands, 
were  the  ministering  spirits  there;  the  presiding 
genius  a  beautiful  Philadelphian  whose  gracious 
tranquillity  was  in  itself  a  heavenly  benediction 
to  the  sick  and  suffering  among  whom  she  lived. 
On  a  table  beside  Wilson's  bed  trailing  arbutus 
was  filling  the  air  with  fragrance  and  telling  the 
story  of  spring. 

Wilson  was  greatly  altered;  but  his  face  was 
radiant  in  the  gladness  of  our  meeting.  For 
weeks  previous  he  had  not  been  able  to  write  me 
of  his  thoughts  or  feelings,  and  I  do  not  know 
when  the  change  came.  But  it  was  clearly  evi- 
dent that,  as  death  approached,  he  had  turned 
to  meet  it ;  and  had  found,  as  so  many  others  have 
found,  that  death  no  longer  seemed  an  enemy 
and  the  end  of  all  things,  but  a  friend  who  was 
leading  the  way  to  fuller  life;  he  assumed  that  I 
understood  all  this;  he  would  have  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  express  it  in  words;  but  he  had  much  to 
tell  me  of  all  those  around  him,  and  wished  to 
share  with  me  the  friendships  he  had  formed  in 

249 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  hospital;  and  I  was  interested  in  the  way  the 
quality  of  the  man's  nature  had  made  itself  felt 
among  nurses  and  patients  alike. 

One  of  the  patients  who  had  just  been  dis- 
charged came  to  the  bedside  to  bid  him  good-by; 
Wilson  grasped  his  hand  and  in  a  few  earnest 
words  reminded  him  of  promises  given  in  a  previ- 
ous conversation.  With  broken  voice  the  man  re- 
newed his  promises,  and  left  with  his  eyes  full  of 
tears.  He  was  unable  to  utter  the  good-by  he  had 
come  to  give. 

At  the  close  of  my  visit  Wilson  insisted  upon 
giving  me  the  loveliest  cluster  of  his  arbutus; 
while  Miss  Alden,  the  Philadelphian,  sanctioned 
with  a  smile  his  sharing  of  her  gift  with  another. 

As  Miss  Alden  went  with  me  to  the  door  she 
told  me  of  her  deep  interest  in  Wilson,  and  of  the 
respect  and  affection  he  had  won  from  all  who  had 
come  in  contact  with  him.  "The  nurses  consider 
it  a  pleasure  to  do  anything  for  one  who  asks  so 
little  and  is  so  grateful,"  she  said.  Though  know- 
ing that  he  had  been  in  prison,  Miss  Alden  was 
surprised  to  learn  that  Wilson  was  not  a  man  of 
education.  His  use  of  English,  the  general  tone 
of  his  thoughts  and  conversation,  had  classed  him 
as  a  man  familiar  with  good  literature  and  re- 

250 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

fined  associations.  She,  too,  had  felt  in  him  a 
certain  spiritual  strength,  and  was  touched  by 
his  loyalty  to  me,  which  seemed  never  obscured 
by  his  gratitude  to  others.  She  believed  that  only 
the  strength  of  his  desire  to  see  me  once  again 
had  kept  him  in  this  world  for  the  previous  week. 

The  next  morning  Wilson  was  visibly  weaker; 
the  animation  caused  by  the  excitement  of  seeing 
me  the  day  before  was  gone;  but  the  spiritual 
peace  and  strength  which  had  come  to  him  were 
the  more  evident. 

At  his  dictation  I  wrote  a  last  message  to  New- 
ton, and  directions  as  to  the  disposal  of  his  cloth- 
ing, to  be  given  to  patients  whose  needs  he  had 
discovered.  He  expressed  a  wish  to  leave  some 
little  remembrances  for  each  of  the  nurses;  there 
were  six  to  whom  he  felt  particularly  indebted. 
There  was  Miss  Stevens,  "who  has  been  so  very 
kind  at  night";  every  one  had  her  special  claim, 
and  I  promised  that  each  should  receive  some 
token  of  his  gratitude. 

Afterward  he  spoke  of  the  new  life  before  him 
as  naturally  and  easily  as  he  spoke  of  the  hospital. 
He  seemed  already  to  have  crossed  the  border  of 
the  new  life.  His  heart  had  found  its  home  in 
God;  there  he  could  give  himself  without  reserve. 

251 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Life  and  eternity  were  gladly  offered  to  the  One 
in  whom  he  had  perfect  trust. 

"Tell  me,"  I  said,  "what  is  your  thought  of 
heaven,  now  that  it  is  so  near?  What  do  you 
expect?" 

How  full  of  courage  and  trust  and  honesty  was 
his  answer !  "I  do  not  expect  happiness;  at  least 
not  at  once.  God  is  too  just  for  that,  after  the 
life  I  have  lived."  Imprisonment,  sickness,  pov- 
erty, all  the  evils  that  we  most  dread,  had  been 
endured  for  years,  but  counted  for  nothing  to 
him  when  weighed  against  his  ruined  life.  But 
the  thought  of  suffering  brought  no  fear.  The 
justice  of  God  was  dearer  to  him  than  personal 
happiness.  I  left  that  feeling  undisturbed.  He 
was  nearer  than  I  to  the  light  of  the  perfect  day, 
and  I  could  see  that,  unconsciously,  he  had  ceased 
to  look  to  any  one  "on  this  side"  for  light. 

Wilson  was  sleeping  when  I  saw  him  again,  but 
the  rapid  change  which  had  taken  place  was  ap- 
parent at  a  glance.  When  he  opened  his  eyes 
and  saw  me  standing  beside  him  he  looked  at  me 
silently  for  a  moment.  With  an  effort  he  gathered 
strength  for  what  he  evidently  wished  to  say;  and 
all  the  gratitude  and  affection  that  he  had  never 
before  attempted  to  express  to  me  directly  were 

252 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

revealed  in  a  few  simple  words.  He  would  have 
no  good-by;  the  loss  of  the  supreme  friendship 
of  his  life  formed  no  part  of  his  idea  of  death. 
Then  he  spoke  of  the  larger  life  of  humanity  for 
which  he  had  learned  to  feel  so  deeply,  and  his 
final  words  to  me  were:  "Be  to  others  what  you 
have  been  to  me.  We  are  all  brothers  and  sisters." 
The  last  thought  between  us  was  not  to  be  of  an 
exclusive,  individual  friendship,  but  of  that  uni- 
versal tie  which  binds  each  to  all. 

Before  midnight  the  earthly  life  had  ended, 
peacefully  and  without  fear.  The  stem  of  Easter 
lilies  that  I  carried  to  the  hospital  next  day  was 
placed  in  the  hands  folded  in  the  last  sleep,  and 
Wilson  clasped  in  death  the  symbol  of  new  life 
and  heavenly  purity. 

Wilson  was  one  of  the  men  behind  the  bars; 
but  it  is  as  man  among  men  that  I  think  of  him; 
and  his  last  words  to  me,  "We  are  all  brothers 
and  sisters,"  sum  up  the  truth  that  inspires  every 
effort  the  round  world  over  to  answer  the  call 
of  those  who  are  desolate  or  oppressed — whether 
the  cry  comes  from  little  children  in  the  mine, 
the  workshop,  or  the  tenement,  or  from  those  who 
are  in  slavery,  in  hospital,  or  in  prison. 


253 


CHAPTER  XIII 

IT  was  during  the  eighties  and  the  nineties 
of  the  last  century  that  I  was  most  closely 
in  touch  with  prison  life;  and  it  was  at  that  time 
that  the  men  whose  stories  I  have  told  and  from 
whose  letters  I  have  quoted  were  behind  the 
bars.  For  forty  years  or  more  there  was  no 
radical  change  in  methods  of  discipline  in  this 
prison,  but  material  conditions  were  somewhat 
improved,  the  stripes  and  the  lock-step  were 
abandoned,  and  sanitation  was  bettered. 

This  institution  stood  as  one  of  the  best  in  the 
country,  and  doubtless  it  was  above  the  average 
in  most  respects.  While  the  convicts  were  under 
rigid  repressive  regulations,  the  guards  were  un- 
der rules  scarcely  less  strict,  no  favoritism  was 
allowed,  no  bribery  tolerated,  and  the  successive 
administrations  were  thoroughly  honorable.  While 
the  different  wardens  conformed  to  accepted 
standards  of  discipline  there  were  many  instances 
of  individual  kindness  from  members  of  the  ad- 
ministration, and  no  favor  that  I  asked  for  a 
prisoner  was  ever  refused. 

254 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

But  the  twentieth  century  has  brought  a  com- 
plete revolution  in  methods  of  dealing  with  con- 
victs. This  radical  revolution  is  overthrowing 
century-old  customs,  and  theories  both  ancient 
and  modern.  It  has  been  sprung  upon  us  so  sud- 
denly that  we  have  not  yet  grasped  its  full  mean- 
ing, but  the  causes  leading  up  to  it  have  been 
silently  working  these  many  years. 

For  ages  the  individuality  of  the  human  being 
has  been  merged  in  the  term  criminal;  the  crim- 
inal had  practically  ceased  to  be  a  man,  and  was 
classified  only  according  to  his  offence;  as  mur- 
derer, thief,  forger,  pickpocket,  etc.  During  the 
nineteenth  century  there  was  a  gradual  mitigation 
of  the  fate  of  the  convict:  laws  became  more 
flexible,  efforts  were  made  to  secure  more  uniform- 
ity in  the  length  of  sentence  imposed,  many 
States  discarded  the  lock-step  and  the  striped 
clothing,  and  the  contract  system  was  giving 
place  to  other  employment  of  convicts.  While 
the  older  prisons  were  growing  unspeakably 
worse  through  decaying  walls  and  increasing 
vermin,  as  new  penitentiaries  were  built  more 
light,  better  ventilation,  larger  cells,  and  alto- 
gether better  sanitation  were  adopted.  However, 
the  Lombroso  theory  of  a  distinct  criminal  type, 

255 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

stamped  with  pronounced  physical  characteristics, 
was  taught  in  all  our  universities  and  so  generally 
accepted  by  the  public  that  the  criminal  was  be- 
lieved to  be  a  different  kind  of  man. 

The  courts  did  a  thriving  business  collecting 
all  their  fees  and  keeping  our  prisons  well  filled, 
while  the  discipline  of  the  convicts  was  left  to 
the  prison  officials,  with  practically  no  interfer- 
ence. Prison  congresses  were  held  and  there  was 
much  talk  around  and  about  the  criminal,  but  he 
was  not  regarded  as  a  man  with  human  feelings 
and  human  rights;  methods  of  management  were 
discussed,  but  the  inhuman  punishments  sanc- 
tioned by  some  of  these  very  wardens  were  never 
mentioned  in  these  discussions.  "We  are  in 
charge;  all's  right  in  the  convict  world,"  was  the 
impression  given  the  outsider  who  listened  to 
their  addresses. 

Unquestionably  many  of  these  prison  wardens 
were  at  heart  humanitarians,  and  gave  to  their 
prisons  a  distinctive  atmosphere  as  the  result  of 
their  personal  characteristics,  but  they  were  all 
the  victims  of  tradition  as  to  dealing  with  con- 
victs— tradition  and  precedent,  the  established 
order  of  prison  management.  The  inexperienced 
warden  taking  charge  naturally  followed  the 

256 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

beaten  tracks;  he  studied  the  situation  from  the 
point  of  view  of  his  predecessor,  and  the  position 
at  best  was  a  difficult  one;  radical  innovations 
could  be  made  only  with  the  sanction  of  the 
prison  commissioners,  who  seemed  to  be  mainly 
interested  in  the  prison  as  a  paying  proposition; 
and  pay  it  did  under  the  abominable  contract 
system. 

And  so  the  years  went  on  with  the  main  lines 
of  prison  discipline — the  daily  lives  of  the  con- 
victs— practically  unchanged.  The  convict  was 
merely  a  human  machine  to  be  worked  a  certain 
number  of  hours  with  no  incentive  to  good  work 
beyond  the  fear  of  punishment.  No  thought  was 
given  to  fitting  him  for  future  citizenship.  Every 
prison  had  its  punishment  cells,  some  of  them 
underground,  most  of  them  dark,  where  men 
were  confined  for  days  on  bread  and  water, 
usually  shackled  standing  to  the  iron  door  of  the 
cell  during  working  hours,  and  at  night  sleeping 
on  the  stone  floor  unless  a  board  was  provided — 
the  food  a  scant  allowance  of  bread  and  water. 
Punishment  of  this  kind  was  inflicted  for  even 
slight  infractions  of  rules,  while  floggings,  "water 
cures,"  and  other  devilish  methods  were  some- 
times resorted  to.  In  prisons  of  the  better  grade 

257 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  most  rigidly  repressive  measures  were  enforced 
and  all  natural  human  impulses  were  repressed. 
This  was  considered  "excellent  discipline." 

Now,  as  to  the  results  of  those  severe  punish- 
ments and  rigid  repressive  methods:  were  the 
criminals  reformed?  Was  society  protected? 
What  were  the  fruits  of  our  prisons  and  reforma- 
tories? I  have  before  me  reliable,  up-to-date 
statistics  from  a  neighboring  State  as  to  the 
number  of  men  convicted  of  a  second  offence 
after  serving  one  term  in  prison.  The  general 
average  shows  that  forty,  out  of  every  hundred 
men  sent  to  prison  for  the  first  time,  on  being  re- 
leased commit  a  second  crime.  This  percentage 
represents  a  fair  average  of  the  results  of  non- 
progressive  prison  methods  to-day.  But  while 
our  prisons  were  practically  at  a  standstill  and 
crime  was  on  the  increase  the  world  was  moving, 
new  ideas  were  in  the  very  air,  destined  to  be  of 
no  less  importance  in  human  development  than 
the  mastery  of  electricity  is  proving  in  the  ma- 
terial world. 

There  is  an  old  proverb  that  all  work  and  no 
play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy.  Some  fifteen  years 
ago  the  vital  truth  contained  in  this  old  saying 
suddenly  crystallized  into  the  playground  move- 

258 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

ment.  More  chance  for  recreation,  more  variety 
in  mental  occupation,  more  fresh  air  and  sun- 
shine, were  strenuously  demanded.  Not  only 
have  playgrounds  broken  out  even  hi  the  midst 
of  our  crowded  cities,  but  open-air  schools  have 
sprung  into  existence  in  Europe  and  are  gaining 
in  favor  in  this  country  where  climate  permits. 
Athletics  in  all  forms  have  steadily  gained  in 
popularity.  Freedom  for  the  body,  exercise  for 
every  muscle,  is  not  only  advocated  by  physicians 
but  has  become  the  fashion,  until  golf  is  now 
the  great  American  pastime,  and  the  benefit  of 
physical  recreation  is  no  longer  questioned. 

Even  more  far-reaching  in  eventual  influence 
is  the  modern  recognition  of  the  rights  and  claims 
of  the  individual.  This  awakening  is  so  wide- 
spread that  it  cannot  be  centralized  in  any  per- 
sonal leadership.  It  is  like  the  dawning  of  a  great 
light  upon  the  life  of  the  twentieth  century  in  all 
civilized  countries,  and  already  it  is  affecting 
existence  in  countless  directions. 

In  the  army  the  common  soldier  is  no  longer 
regarded  as  merely  a  shooting-machine,  he  is 
drilled  and  trained  and  schooled  into  develop- 
ment as  a  man  as  well  as  a  soldier.  In  the  treat- 
ment of  the  insane,  physical  restraint  is  gradually 

259 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

being  relegated  to  the  past;  the  patient  is  regarded 
first  of  all  as  a  human  being,  not  merely  as  a  case. 
More  and  more  the  individual  needs  are  studied 
and  individual  talents  brought  into  activity.  In 
schools  for  the  mentally  defective  the  very  foun- 
dation of  the  methods  and  aims  is  to  promote 
the  development  of  the  individual,  to  draw  out 
to  the  utmost  whatever  rudiments  of  ability  the 
child  may  possess  and  to  keep  the  light  turned 
steadily  on  the  normal  rather  than  the  abnormal 
in  his  nature.  Physicians,  psychologists,  and 
educators  alike  are  realizing  the  importance  of 
adapting  methods  to  the  needs  of  the  individual. 
Child-study — unfortunately,  in  many  cases  the 
study  of  text-books  rather  than  of  the  living  child 
in  the  family,  but  child-study  in  some  form — pre- 
vails among  the  mothers  of  to-day.  The  gifted 
Madame  Montessori,  from  both  the  scientific  and 
the  humanitarian  standpoint,  is  emphasizing  the 
importance  of  giving  the  child  freedom  for  self- 
expression.  In  the  suffrage  movement  we  have 
another  evidence  of  the  same  impulse  toward 
recognition  of  individual  rights.  It  comes  to  us 
from  every  direction,  even  from  the  battle-field 
where  the  Red  Cross  nurse  sees  neither  friend  nor 
foe,  only  a  suffering  man  needing  her  care. 

260 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Here  we  have  two  great  forces:  nature's  im- 
perative demand  for  more  freedom  for  the  body, 
more  of  God's  sunshine  and  fresh  air;  and  the 
still  more  imperative  demand  from  the  spirit  in 
man  for  recognition  and  release.  The  two  forces 
unite  in  the  one  demand,  Pro  sanitate  totius 
hominis — for  the  health  of  the  whole  man. 

Some  thirty  years  ago  Richard  Dugdale,  a 
large-hearted,  large-brained  student  of  sociology, 
had  the  courage  to  state  that  the  great  blunder 
of  society  in  dealing  with  criminals  began  with 
shutting  up  so  many  of  them  within  our  prisons, 
practically  enslaving  them  to  the  state,  depriv- 
ing them  of  all  rewards  for  their  labor  and  often 
throwing  their  families  upon  public  taxation  for 
support;  even  in  many  cases  making  the  punish- 
ment fall  more  heavily  upon  innocent  relatives 
than  upon  the  offenders  themselves.  He  believed, 
however,  that  there  would  be  a  residue  of  prac- 
tically irreclaimable  criminals  whose  permanent 
removal  from  society  was  necessary,  but  that  life 
for  this  class  should  be  made  as  nearly  normal  as 
possible.  Richard  Dugdale  was  a  man  of  pro- 
phetic insight,  with  a  clear  vision  of  the  whole 
question  of  social  economics — social  duties  as  well. 
Unfortunately,  his  death  soon  followed  the  pub- 

261 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

lication  of  his  articles.  But  time  is  making  his 
dreams  come  true,  and  vindicating  the  soundness 
of  his  theories.  Even  during  the  lifetime  of  this 
man  spasmodic  efforts  were  made  in  placing  men 
on  probation  after  a  first  offence  instead  of  send- 
ing them  to  prison. 

With  the  introduction  of  the  juvenile  courts 
early  in  the  present  century  this  idea  assumed 
practical  form;  and  Judge  Lindsey,  of  Denver, 
gave  such  impetus  to  the  movement  to  save  young 
offenders  from  the  demoralizing  influence  of  jails 
and  miscalled  reformatories  that  this  example 
has  been  followed  in  all  directions,  and  thousands 
of  boys  have  been  rescued  from  criminal  life. 
"Save  the  boys  and  girls"  appealed  directly  to 
the  masses,  and  this  ounce  of  prevention  was  in- 
dorsed with  little  opposition. 

But  when  the  extension  of  the  probation 
privilege  to  include  adult  offenders — still  further 
to  reduce  the  prison  population — was  advocated 
the  public  held  back,  fearing  danger  to  society  in 
allowing  these  older  lawbreakers  to  escape  the 
legal  penalties  of  their  offences.  However,  the 
current  of  progress  was  not  to  be  stemmed,  and 
adult  probation  has  been  legalized  in  many  States. 
The  results  have  been  satisfactory  beyond  ex- 

262 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

pectation,  showing  an  average  of  less  than  five 
per  cent  of  men  released  on  probation  reverting 
to  crime,  against  forty  per  cent  of  reversions  after 
a  term  in  a  non-progressive  penitentiary. 

This  adult  probation  law  confers  upon  the  judge 
not  mandatory  but  discretionary  power,  and  the 
character  of  the  judge  plays  a  part  not  less  im- 
portant than  the  character  of  the  offender;  the 
application  of  the  law  is  primarily  a  relation  of 
man  to  man;  the  unjust  judge  will  be  unjust 
still,  the  timid  judge  will  avoid  taking  risks;  in 
the  very  human  side  in  which  lies  the  strength  of 
this  course  lie  also  its  limitations. 

Now  the  very  foundation  of  the  probation  idea 
is  the  recognition  of  the  individual  character  of 
the  offender  and  the  circumstances  leading  to  the 
crime.  But  no  sooner  was  the  adult  probation 
law  in  force  than  the  claim  of  the  individual  from 
another  direction  began  to  be  recognized.  Curi- 
ously enough,  in  legal  proceedings  against  crim- 
inals the  injured  party  had  been  entirely  ignored 
—according  to  the  old  English  precedent.  It 
was  not  the  crime  of  man  against  man  but  the 
crime  of  man  against  the  state,  the  violation  of  a 
state  law,  that  was  punished.  To  the  mind  of  the 
criminal  a  crime  against  the  state  was  but  a 

263 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

vague  and  indefinite  abstraction,  except  in  case 
of  murder  unlikely  to  cause  remorse,  or  any  feel- 
ing of  responsibility  toward  the  person  injured. 
If  the  injured  party  were  revengeful  he  had  the 
satisfaction  of  knowing  that  the  criminal  was 
punished;  but  the  sending  of  the  delinquent  to 
prison  deprived  him  of  all  opportunity  for  repara- 
tion. 

An  interesting  thing  begins  to  happen  when  the 
judge  is  given  power  to  put  a  man  on  probation. 
At  last  the  injury  to  the  individual  is  taken  into 
consideration.  Here  is  an  actual  instance  in 
point. 

"Five  thousand  dollars  was  embezzled  from  a 
Los  Angeles  theatre  and  dissipated  in  high  living 
by  a  man  twenty-one  years  old.  He  confessed 
and  received  this  sentence  from  the  judge: 

tcYou  shall  stay  at  home  nights.  You  shall 
remain  within  the  limits  of  this  county.  You 
shall  not  play  billiards  or  pool,  frequent  cafes  or 
drink  intoxicating  liquors,  and  you  shall  go  im- 
mediately to  work  and  keep  at  it  till  you  pay  back 
every  dollar  that  you  stole.  Violate  these  terms 
and  you  go  to  prison.'"* 

This  practice  of  making  restitution  one  of  the 

*  Morrison  I.  Swift,  Atlantic  Monthly,  August,  1911. 
264 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

conditions  of  probation  is  spreading  rapidly. 
Here  we  have  a  method  hitherto  unapproached 
of  securing  all-round,  common-sense  justice,  di- 
rectly in  line  also  with  sound  social  economics. 
Mr.  Morrison  Swift  has  well  said  of  a  term  in 
prison  that  "it  breaks  the  current  between  the 
man  and  life,  so  that  when  he  emerges  it  is  hard 
to  form  connections  again.  He  has  lost  his  job, 
and  too  often  health,  nerve,  and  self-respect  are 
impaired.  These  obstacles  to  reformation  are 
swept  away  when  a  man  retains  his  connection 
with  the  community  by  working  in  it  like  anybody 
else." 

Another  factor  in  the  scheme  of  probation  is 
that  it  brings  the  delinquent  directly  in  touch 
with  a  friendly,  guiding,  and  helping  hand,  plac- 
ing him  at  once  under  good  influences;  for  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  probation  officer  to  secure  for  his 
charge  environment  calculated  to  foster  reforma- 
tion: he  becomes  indeed  his  brother's  keeper. 

While  modern  ideas  have  thus  been  applied  in 
the  rescue  of  the  individual  before  he  has  become 
identified  with  criminal  life,  even  more  marked 
has  been  the  invasion  of  recent  movements  into 
the  very  stronghold  of  the  penitentiary  itself. 

The  twentieth  century  marks  the  beginning  of 
265 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  crusade  against  tuberculosis.  Physicians, 
philanthropists,  and  legislators  combined  against 
the  fearful  ravages  of  this  enemy  to  the  very  life 
of  the  people.  Generous  appropriations  were 
given  by  the  state  for  the  cure  of  the  disease 
and  every  effort  was  made  to  trace  the  sources 
of  the  evil.  And  then  it  transpired  that,  while 
the  state  with  her  left  hand  was  establishing 
out-of-door  colonies  for  the  treatment  of  tubercu- 
losis, with  her  right  hand  she  was  maintaining 
laboratories  for  the  culture  of  the  fatal  germs, 
and  industriously  scattering  the  seeds  in  localities 
where  they  would  be  most  fruitful.  In  other 
words,  the  very  walls  of  our  prisons  had  become 
beds  of  infection.  Doctor  J.  B.  Ransome,  of 
New  York  State,  finds  that  from  forty  to  sixty 
per  cent  of  the  deaths  in  all  prisons  are  from 
tuberculosis;  at  times  the  mortality  has  run  as 
high  as  eighty  per  cent.  He  tells  us  also  that  in 
the  United  States  to-day  there  are  twenty  thou- 
sand tubercular  prisoners,  most  of  whom  will 
return  to  the  congested  districts  and  stuffy  tene- 
ments where  the  disease  is  most  rapidly  and 
virulently  spread.* 
He  urges  as  of  the  utmost  importance  that  in- 

*  Atlantic  Monthly,  August,  1911. 
266 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

fected  prisons  be  destroyed,  and  that  convicts  be 
given  work  in  the  open  air  when  possible;  and  that 
light,  air,  exercise,  more  nourishing  food,  and 
more  healthful  conditions  generally  be  substi- 
tuted for  the  disease-breeding  conditions  under 
which  prisons  have  always  existed.  Thus,  apart 
from  all  humanitarian  considerations,  public 
health  demands  radical  changes  in  prisons  and  in 
the  lives  of  the  prisoners. 

The  automobile,  the  autocrat  of  the  present 
day,  has  little  of  the  missionary  spirit;  but  it  has 
made  its  imperious  demand  for  good  roads  all 
over  the  country,  and  legislation  now  authorizing 
convict  labor  on  State  roads  is  not  only  responding 
to  this  demand  but  is  partly  solving  the  vexed 
problem  of  the  employment  of  convicts. 

How  far  the  men  responsible  for  the  revolution 
in  the  management  of  prisoners  have  studied 
these  trends  of  the  times  I  do  not  know.  Most 
of  these  men  have  doubtless  builded  better  than 
they  knew.  All  the  winds  of  progress,  moving 
from  every  direction,  seem  to  be  concentrating  in 
one  blast  destined  to  crumble  the  walls  of  our 
prisons  as  the  walls  of  Jericho  are  said  to  have 
crumbled  under  the  blast  of  the  trumpets  of 
the  hosts  of  the  Lord.  It  may  even  be  that 

267 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

the  hosts  of  the  Lord  are  back  of  these  winds  of 
progress. 

The  introduction  of  this  reform  movement 
required  men  of  exceptional  force  and  ability, 
and  in  answer  to  this  demand  just  such  men  are 
coming  to  the  front.  The  United  States  has 
already  developed  a  remarkable  line  of  captains 
of  industry,  but  not  less  remarkable  men  are 
taking  this  humanitarian  field  to-day. 

The  pioneer  in  revolutionizing  prison-manage- 
ment was  neither  penologist  nor  philanthropist. 
The  first  step  was  taken  for  purely  practical  ends. 
It  happened,  when  the  twentieth  century  had 
just  begun,  that  Mr.  John  Cleghorne,  a  newly  ap- 
pointed warden  of  a  Colorado  penitentiary,  found 
that  the  State  had  provided  neither  cells  nor 
workshops  within  the  prison  for  the  number  of 
convicts  sentenced  to  hard  labor.  To  meet  this 
exigency  this  warden  decided  to  put  a  number  of 
men  to  work  outside  the  walls,  organizing  a  camp 
and  putting  the  men,  then  in  striped  clothing,  on 
their  honor  not  to  escape.  The  experiment  was 
altogether  successful;  but  so  quietly  carried  on 
that  it  received  little  attention  outside  the  borders 
of  its  own  State  until  the  appointment  of  the  next 
warden,  Thomas  J.  Tynan,  who  recognized  the 

268 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

beginning  of  true  reform  in  the  treatment  of 
convicts  and  openly  advocated  the  changes  from 
humanitarian  motives. 

While  to  Colorado  is  given  the  precedence  in 
this  movement,  a  notable  feature  is  the  nearly 
simultaneous  expression  of  feeling  and  ideas 
practically  the  same  in  widely  separated  locali- 
ties, from  the  Pacific  coast  to  the  Atlantic,  and 
even  on  the  shores  of  Panama.  Naturally  the 
movement  started  in  the  West,  hi  newer  States 
less  trammelled  by  precedent  than  the  older 
States,  where  traditions  of  prison  discipline  had 
been  handed  down  for  two  centuries;  but  the 
time  was  ripe  for  the  change  and  it  has  been 
brought  about  through  men,  some  of  them  trained 
penologists,  others  practical  men  of  affairs,  but 
all  united  in  faith  in  human  nature  and  in  the 
one  aim  of  fitting  the  men  under  their  jurisdiction 
for  self-supporting,  law-abiding  citizenship. 

Sceptics  as  to  the  effect  on  the  prisoner  of  this 
liberalizing  tendency  are  silenced  by  the  amaz- 
ing response  on  the  part  of  the  convicts  in  every 
prison  where  the  honor  system  has  been  applied. 
This  response  is  unquestionable:  a  spirit  of  mu- 
tual confidence  is  displacing  one  of  suspicion 
and  discouragement,  and  in  supplanting  the  old 

269 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

antagonism  to  prison  authorities  by  a  hearty 
sense  of  co-operation  with  them  an  inestimable 
point  in  prison  discipline  is  gained.  We  hear 
much  these  days  of  the  power  of  suggestion,  and 
the  suggestion,  conscious  and  unconscious,  per- 
meating the  very  atmosphere  of  these  progressive 
prisons  is  hopeful  and  helpful. 

Never  before  in  the  tragic  history  of  prisons 
has  a  spiritual  force  been  applied  to  the  control 
of  prisoners;  and  yet  with  one  consent  the  first 
step  taken  by  these  progressive  wardens  is  to 
place  convicts  on  their  honor:  not  chains  and 
shackles,  not  bolts  and  bars,  no  form  of  physical 
restraint;  but  a  force  indefinable,  impalpable, 
invisible,  applied  to  the  spirit  of  these  men.  In 
bringing  this  force  to  bear  on  their  charges  these 
wardens  have  indeed  "hitched  their  wagon  to  a 
star." 


270 


CHAPTER  XIV 

/\ND  the  time  came,  in  1913,  when  the  wave 
•L  V  of  revolution  in  prison  methods  struck  the 
penitentiary  which  formed  the  background  of  the 
lives  pictured  within  these  pages.  Back  of  all 
my  friendships  with  these  men  had  loomed  the 
prison  under  the  old  methods,  casting  its  dark 
shadow  across  their  lives.  Many  of  them  died 
within  the  walls;  others  came  out  only  to  die  in 
charity  hospitals,  or  to  take  up  the  battle  of  life 
with  enfeebled  health  and  enfeebled  powers  of 
resistance  and  endurance.  Almost  as  one  man 
they  had  protected  me  from  the  realization  of 
what  they  endured  in  the  punishment  cells — from 
what  the  physical  conditions  of  prison  life  really 
were;  but  I  knew  far  more  than  they  thought  I 
did — as  much  as  I  could  endure  to  know — and 
in  our  interviews  we  understood  that  it  was  use- 
less to  discuss  evils  which  I  was  powerless  to  help; 
and  then,  too,  I  always  tried  to  make  those 
interviews  oases  in  the  desert  of  their  lives.  But 
across  my  own  heart  also  the  shadow  of  the  prison 
lay  all  those  years.  Into  the  bright  melody  of  a 

271 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

June  morning  the  sudden  thought  of  the  prison 
would  crash  with  cruel  discord;  at  times  every- 
thing most  bright  and  beautiful  would  but  the 
more  sharply  accent  the  tragedy  of  prison  life. 
Deep  below  the  surface  of  my  thought  there 
was  always  the  consciousness  of  the  prison;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  this  abiding  consciousness 
made  the  ordinary  trials  and  annoyances  in- 
separable from  human  life  seem  of  little  moment, 
passing  clouds  across  the  sunlight  of  a  more  for- 
tunate existence;  and  I  was  thankful  that  from 
my  own  happy  hours  I  could  glean  some  ray  of 
brightness  to  pour  into  lives  utterly  desolate. 
So  absolutely  did  I  enter  into  the  prison  life  that 
even  to-day  it  forms  one  of  the  most  vivid  chapters 
of  my  personal  experience.  Accordingly,  my  point 
of  view  of  the  change  in  the  prison  situation  can- 
not be  altogether  that  of  the  outsider.  I  know 
what  this  change  means  to  the  men  within  the 
walls;  for  in  feeling,  I  too  have  been  a  prisoner. 
A  little  paper  lies  before  me,  the  first  number 
of  a  new  monthly  publication  from  behind  the 
bars  of  the  prison  I  know  so  well.  In  its  pages 
is  mirrored  a  new  dispensation — the  new  dis- 
pensation sweeping  with  irresistible  force  from 
State  to  State.  Too  deep  for  words  was  the 

272 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

thankfulness  that  filled  my  heart  as  I  tried  to 
realize  that  at  last  the  day  had  come  when  pris- 
oners were  recognized  as  men,  and  that  this  blessed 
change  had  come  to  my  own  State.  I  knew  it 
was  on  the  way;  I  knew  that  things  were  work- 
ing in  the  right  direction;  I  had  even  talked  with 
the  new  warden  about  some  of  these  very  changes; 
but  here  it  was  in  black  and  white,  over  the 
signatures  of  the  warden,  his  deputy,  two  chap- 
lains, the  prison  doctor,  and  several  representa- 
tives of  the  prisoners  themselves:  all  bearing 
witness  to  the  new  order  of  things;  to  the  facts 
already  accomplished  and  to  plans  for  the  better- 
ment of  existing  conditions.  Of  the  fifteen  hun- 
dred convicts  fifty  have  been  for  several  months 
employed  on  State  roads  under  the  supervision 
of  two  unarmed  guards.  The  fifty  men  were 
honor  men  and  none  have  broken  faith.  Two 
hundred  more  honor  men  will  be  sent  out  in  the 
same  way  during  the  summer  of  1914.  Another 
three  hundred  will  work  on  the  prison  farm  of  one 
thousand  acres,  erecting  farm  buildings  and 
raising  garden  and  farm  products  for  the  prison 
and  the  stock,  and  gaining  health  for  themselves 
in  a  life  practically  free  during  working  hours. 
To  the  men  inside  the  prison  walls  the  routine 
273 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  daily  life  is  wholly  altered.  No  longer  do  they 
eat  in  silence  with  downcast  eyes;  the  table  is  a 
meeting-place  of  human  beings  where  talk  flows 
naturally.  No  longer  is  life  one  dull  round  from 
prison  cell  to  shop,  where  talk  and  movements  of 
relaxation  are  forbidden;  and  back  in  silent 
march  to  prison  cell,  with  never  a  breath  of  fresh 
air  except  on  the  march  to  and  from  the  shops. 
This  monotony  is  now  broken  by  a  recreation 
hour  in  the  open  air  every  day,  given  in  turn  to 
companies  of  the  men  taken  from  the  work- 
shops in  which  exchange  of  remarks  is  now  al- 
lowed. In  pleasant  weather  this  recreation  is 
taken  in  games  or  other  diversions  involving 
exercise.  "Everything  goes  but  righting"  is  the 
liberal  permission,  and  recreation  in  cold  weather 
takes  the  form  of  marching. 

From  October  to  May,  for  five  hours  in  the  day, 
six  days  in  the  week,  school  is  in  session  in  four 
separate  rooms,  the  highest  classes  covering  the 
eighth  grade  of  our  public  schools.  Any  prisoner 
may  absent  himself  from  work  one  hour  a  day  if 
desiring  to  attend  the  school,  and  can  pursue  his 
studies  in  his  cell  evenings.  Competent  teachers 
are  found  among  the  prisoners,  and  no  guard  is 
present  during  instruction  hours.  Arrangements 

274 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

are  now  on  foot  for  educational  correspondence 
connected  with  the  State  university. 

The  time  given  to  recreation  and  to  education 
has  not  lessened  the  output  of  the  shops;  on  the 
contrary,  the  new  spirit  pervading  the  prison  has 
so  energized  the  men,  so  awakened  their  ambition, 
that  more  and  better  work  is  done  in  the  shops 
than  before.  The  grade  of  "industrial  efficiency" 
recently  introduced  serves  as  a  further  incentive 
to  skill  and  industry  and  will  secure  special 
recommendation  for  efficiency  when  the  men  are 
free  to  take  their  own  places  in  the  world. 

Nor  is  this  all;  for  each  prisoner  as  far  as  is 
practicable  is  assigned  work  for  which  he  is  in- 
dividually fitted.  Men  educated  as  physicians 
are  transferred  from  the  shops  to  the  staff  of 
hospital  assistants;  honor  men  qualified  for  posi- 
tions where  paid  attendants  have  hitherto  been 
employed  are  transferred  to  these  positions,  thus 
reducing  expenses.  Honor  men  having  mechan- 
ical faculty  are  permitted  during  the  evenings  in 
their  cells  to  make  articles,  the  sale  of  which 
gives  them  a  little  money  independently  earned. 
Also  in  some  of  the  prison  shops  the  workers  are 
allowed  a  share  in  the  profits.  It  is  the  warden's 
aim  to  utilize  as  far  as  possible  individual  talent 

275 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

among  his  wards,  to  give  every  man  every  pos- 
sible chance  to  earn  an  honest  living  on  his  release; 
to  make  the  prison,  as  he  puts  it,  "a  school  of 
citizenship."  To  every  cell  is  furnished  a  copy 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  of 
the  State  in  which  the  prison  is  located,  with  the 
laws  affecting  criminals.  Further  instructions  re- 
lating to  American  citizenship  are  given,  and  are 
especially  valuable  to  foreigners. 

But  helpful  as  are  all  these  changes  in  method, 
the  real  heart  of  the  change,  the  vital  transform- 
ing quality  is  in  the  personal  relation  of  the  warden 
to  his  wards.  In  conferences  held  in  the  prison 
chapel  the  warden  makes  known  his  views  and 
aims,  speaking  freely  of  prison  matters,  endeav- 
oring to  inspire  the  men  with  high  ideals  of  con- 
duct and  to  secure  their  intelligent  and  hearty 
co-operation  for  their  present  and  their  future. 
Here  it  is  also  that  the  men  are  free  to  make 
known  their  prison  troubles,  sure  of  the  warden's 
sympathetic  consideration  of  means  of  adjust- 
ment. Heart  and  soul  the  warden  is  devoted  to 
his  work,  never  losing  sight  of  his  ultimate  aim 
of  restoring  to  society  law-abiding  citizens,  but 
also  feeling  the  daily  need  of  these  prisoners  for 
encouragement  and  for  warm  human  sympathy. 

276 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Mr.  Fielding-Hall,  after  many  years  of  prac- 
tical experience  with  criminals,  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  humanity  and  compassion  are  essen- 
tial requisites  in  all  attempts  "to  cure  the  disease 
of  crime,"  and  the  curative  power  of  sympathy  is 
old  as  the  hills;  it  began  with  the  mother  who 
first  kissed  the  place  to  make  it  well;  and  from 
that  day  to  this  the  limit  to  the  power  of  sym- 
pathy has  never  been  compassed,  when  sympathy 
is  not  allowed  to  evaporate  as  an  emotion,  but, 
hardened  into  a  motive,  becomes  a  lever  to  raise 
the  fallen. 

It  is  largely  owing  to  the  sympathy  of  the 
present  warden  that  light  and  air  have  come  into 
the  moral  and  mental  atmosphere  of  this  prison. 
In  the  natures  of  the  men  qualities  hitherto 
dormant  and  undiscovered  have  come  to  the 
surface  and  are  in  the  ascendant,  aroused  by  the 
warden's  appeal  to  their  manhood;  and  the  war- 
den's enthusiasm  is  the  spark  that  has  touched 
the  spirit  of  the  subordinate  officials  and  has 
fused  into  unison  the  whole  administration.  And 
the  warden  is  fortunate  in  the  combination  of 
men  working  with  him.  His  deputy,  the  disci- 
plinarian of  the  place,  served  for  twenty-five 
years  on  the  police  force  of  Chicago,  a  position 

277 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

directly  antagonized  to  crime  and  yet  affording 
exceptional  opportunity  for  the  study  of  crim- 
inals. True  to  his  colors  as  a  protector  of  society, 
he  now  feels  that  society  is  best  protected  through 
the  reclamation  of  those  who  have  broken  its 
laws;  he  believes  that  the  true  disciplinarian  is 
not  the  one  who  punishes  most  severely  but  the 
one  who  trains  his  charges  to  join  hands  with 
him  in  the  maintenance  of  law  and  order  within 
their  little  community;  and  he  has  already  re- 
duced the  punishment  record  for  violation  of 
rules  to  scarcely  more  than  one-tenth  of  former 
averages;  and  the  shackling  of  men  in  the  punish- 
ment cells  is  abolished. 

The  prison  physician  is  an  up-to-date  man, 
fully  in  accord  with  the  views  of  the  warden, 
and  with  admirable  hospital  equipment  where 
excellent  surgical  work  is  done  when  required. 
The  two  chaplains  have  a  missionary  field  of  the 
highest  opportunities,  where  a  sympathetic  friend- 
ship for  the  prisoner  during  six  days  in  the  week 
becomes  the  highway  to  their  hearts  on  the 
seventh. 

The  faces  of  the  prisoners  bear  witness  to  the 
life-giving  influences  at  work  among  them;  the 
downcast  apathy  has  given  place  to  an  expression 

278 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  cheerful  interest,  and  the  prison  pallor  to  a 
healthful  color.  And  the  old  prison  buildings — 
the  living  tomb  of  hundreds  of  men — are  them- 
selves now  doomed.  On  the  adjacent  farm  the  pris- 
oners will  eventually  build  new  quarters,  either 
one  modern  prison  into  which  God's  sunlight  and 
the  free  air  of  heaven  will  have  access,  or,  better 
still,  a  prison  village,  a  community  in  detached 
buildings,  after  the  plan  which  has  proven  so 
satisfactory  in  other  State  institutions. 

And  what  of  the  women  sent  to  prison  in  this 
State?  For  fifteen  years  and  more  they  have 
been  housed  in  a  separate  institution.  This  has 
never  been  a  place  of  degradation.  Every  in- 
mate has  a  light,  well-ventilated,  outside  room, 
supplied  with  simple  furnishings  and  toilet  con- 
veniences; white  spreads  cover  the  beds,  and 
the  home  touch  is  evident  in  the  photographs 
and  fancy-work  so  dear  to  the  heart  of  woman. 
The  prisoners  in  their  dress  of  blue-and-white 
check  are  neat  and  trim  in  appearance  as  maids 
from  Holland.  They  number  but  sixty-five,  and 
conversation  is  allowed. 

The  women  have  a  recreation  playground  for 
open-air  exercise  and  an  assembly-room  for  eve- 
ning entertainments.  They  are  given  industrial 

279 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

training  and  elementary  education;  and  though 
the  discipline  is  firm  the  life  is  kept  normal  as 
possible;  and  wilful  violation  of  rules  seldom  oc- 
curs. The  present  superintendent  is  a  woman 
of  exceptional  qualifications  for  the  position — a 
woman  of  quick,  responsive  sympathies,  and  wide 
experience,  with  fine  executive  ability.  A  thorough 
course  in  domestic  science  is  fitting  the  women 
for  domestic  service  or  future  home-making,  and 
some  of  them  are  skilled  in  fine  needle-work  and 
embroidery. 

The  lines  in  the  old  picture  of  prison  life  so 
deeply  etched  into  my  consciousness  are  already 
fading;  for  while  I  know  that  in  too  many  States 
the  awakening  has  not  come,  and  the  fate  of  the 
prisoner  is  still  a  blot  on  our  civilization,  the  light 
has  broken  and  the  way  is  clear.  Not  only  in  my 
own  State  but  to  every  State  in  the  Union  the 
death-knell  of  the  old  penitentiary,  with  its  noi- 
some cells  and  dark  dungeons,  has  struck.  The 
bloodless  revolution  of  the  reform  movement  is 
irresistible  simply  because  it  is  in  line  with  human 
progress. 

Not  until  the  present  generation  of  criminals 
has  passed  away  can  adequate  results  of  the  wide- 
spreading  change  in  prison  management  be  ex- 

280 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

pected;  for  a  large  percentage  of  our  convicts 
to-day  are  the  product  of  crime-breeding  jails, 
reformatories,  and  prisons.  The  "  incorrigibles " 
are  all  men  who  have  been  subjected  to  demoral- 
izing and  brutalizing  influences.  In  the  blood- 
curdling outbreaks  of  gunmen  and  train-holdups 
society  is  but  reaping  the  harvest  of  evils  it  has 
allowed.  Not  until  police  stations,  jails,  work- 
houses, reformatories,  and  prisons  are  all  radically 
changed  can  any  fair  estimate  be  made  of  the 
value  of  the  recent  humane  methods. 


281 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  basic  principle  of  reform  in  those  who 
prey  upon  society  is  the  changing  of  energies 
destructive  into  energies  constructive.  It  is 
the  opening  of  fresh  channels  for  human  forces. 
Change  of  environment,  the  breaking  of  every 
association  connected  with  criminal  pursuits,  life 
in  the  open  in  contrast  with  the  tainted  atmos- 
phere of  crowded  tenements  and  dance  halls — all 
this  has  a  healthful,  liberating  influence  on  the 
mind;  abnormal  obsessions  are  relaxed,  different 
brain-cells  become  active,  and  the  moral  fibre  of 
the  man  as  well  as  his  physical  being  absorbs 
vital  elements.  That  the  laborer  is  entitled  to  a 
share  in  the  fruits  of  his  labor  is  true  the  world 
over,  and  industry  and  efficiency  are  stimulated 
by  recognition  of  the  relation  of  achievement  to 
reward. 

Strict  repressive  discipline  applied  to  organized 
enslavement  of  labor  is  in  direct  violation  of  all 
these  principles.  The  penal  colony  seems  a  ra- 
tional method  of  dealing  with  those  whose  per- 

282 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

manent  removal  from  our  midst  is  deemed  neces- 
sary. Time  and  again  have  penal  colonies  given 
satisfactory  solution  to  the  criminal  problem. 
Virginia  and  Maryland  absorbed  the  human  ex- 
ports from  English  courts,  and  their  descend- 
ants joined  in  the  building  of  a  great  nation; 
while  the  penal  colony  in  Australia  resulted  in  a 
civilization  of  the  first  rank.  While  the  depor- 
tation of  our  criminals  to-day  may  be  neither 
practicable  nor  desirable,  the  establishment  of 
industrial  penal  communities  in  every  State,  on  a 
profit-sharing  basis,  is  both  practicable  and  de- 
sirable, and  would  unquestionably  result  in  the 
permanent  reform  of  many  who  are  now  a  menace 
to  public  safety. 

Notwithstanding  that  progressive  wardens  are 
accomplishing  all-important  changes  hi  their  do- 
mains, permanent  reform  work  for  convicts  de- 
mands a  number  of  concessions  in  legislation. 
Until  the  contract  system  is  wholly  and  finally 
abolished  in  favor  of  the  state-use  system  the 
power  of  even  the  best  warden  will  be  limited. 
With  the  state-use  system  and  the  prison  farm 
the  prisoners  have  a  variety  in  opportunity  of 
industrial  training  almost  as  great  as  that  offered 
on  the  outside. 

283 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

That  the  earnings  of  prisoners,  beyond  the 
cost  of  their  maintenance,  should  either  be  cred- 
ited to  the  man  himself  or  sent  to  the  family 
dependent  upon  him  is  but  fair  to  the  prisoner, 
and  would  relieve  the  county  from  which  he  is  sent 
from  taxation  toward  the  support  of  the  man's 
family.  This  is  so  obvious  that  it  is  now  widely 
advocated  for  both  economic  and  humanitarian 
reasons,  and  in  several  States  has  already  been 
adopted. 

Another  concession  is  of  still  greater  importance, 
since  its  neglect  has  been  in  direct  violation  not 
only  of  every  principle  of  justice  but  of  com- 
mon every-day  honesty.  This  concession  is  the 
recognition  of  the  duty  of  the  state  to  make  what 
reparation  is  possible  to  the  man  who  has  suffered 
imprisonment  for  a  crime  of  which  he  was  in- 
nocent. 

Years  ago,  during  one  of  my  visits  to  our  peni- 
tentiary, a  lawyer  of  wide  experience  made  the 
remark:  "From  what  I  know  of  court  proceed- 
ings I  suppose  twenty  per  cent  of  these  convicts 
are  innocent  of  the  charge  for  which  they  are 
here."  I  did  not  credit  that  statement,  and  after- 
ward repeated  it  to  another  lawyer,  who  said: 
"I  should  estimate  the  percentage  even  higher." 

284 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

I  did  not  believe  that  estimate  either;  nor  do  I 
now  believe  it.  But  having  worked  up  the  cases 
and  secured  the  pardons  of  two  innocent  men, 
and  having  personally  known  two  other  men  im- 
prisoned for  crimes  in  which  they  took  no  part,  I 
know  that  innocent  men  are  sent  to  prison. 
Lawyers  are  prone  to  dispose  of  such  instances 
with  the  offhand  remark,  "Well,  they  might  not 
have  been  guilty  of  that  particular  act,  but  no 
doubt  they  had  committed  crimes  for  which 
they  escaped  punishment."  I  have  positive 
knowledge  of  only  those  four  cases,  but  in  none 
of  them  was  the  convicted  man  from  the  crim- 
inal class.  Another  remark  which  I  have  met  is 
this:  "Doubtless  there  are  innocent  men  in  prison, 
but  there  are  more  guilty  ones  who  escape," 
which  reminds  one  of  Charles  Lamb's  admission: 
"Yes,  I  am  often  late  to  business  in  the  morn- 
ing, but  then  I  always  go  home  early  in  the 
afternoon."  Plausible  as  the  excuse  sounds,  it 
but  aggravates  the  admission. 

It  happened  some  years  ago  in  my  own  State 
that  a  working  man  was  convicted  of  killing 
another.  Henry  Briggs  asserted  his  innocence, 
but  a  network  of  plausible  evidence  was  drawn 
about  him  and  he  was  sent  to  prison  for  life. 

285 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

His  widowed  mother  had  faith  in  his  innocence 
and  paid  two  thousand  dollars  to  lawyers,  who 
promised  to  secure  her  son's  pardon  but  accom- 
plished nothing  in  that  direction.  Briggs  had 
been  in  prison  some  ten  years  when  he  told  his 
story  to  me  and  I  believed  that  he  told  the  truth. 
His  home  town  was  across  the  State  from  me, 
but  I  wrote  the  ex-sheriff,  who  was  supposed  to 
know  all  about  the  case,  that  the  prisoner's 
mother  would  give  another  thousand  dollars  to 
him  if  he  could  secure  evidence  of  Henry's  in- 
nocence and  obtain  his  pardon.  A  long  and  in- 
teresting correspondence  followed,  and  at  the 
end  of  two  years  evidence  of  the  man's  innocence 
was  secured  and  Henry  Briggs  was  a  free  man. 
In  his  last  letter  the  sheriff  wrote  me:  "To  think 
that  all  these  twelve  years  that  convicted  man 
had  been  telling  the  absolute  truth  and  it  never 
occurred  to  any  one  to  believe  him  until  you  heard 
his  story."  But  that  ex-sheriff,  who  had  col- 
lected his  sheriff's  fees  and  mileage  for  taking  an 
innocent  man  to  prison — he  was  really  indebted 
to  the  prisoner  for  a  neat  little  sum  paid  by  the 
county — yet  that  sheriff  had  no  scruples  in  taking 
the  thousand  dollars  from  Mrs.  Briggs  for  right- 
ing a  wrong  which,  he  frankly  admitted  to  me,  he 

286 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

had  taken  part  in  perpetrating.  Now,  in  common 
honesty,  in  dollars  and  cents,  the  county  from 
which  Henry  was  sent  owed  the  Briggs  mother 
and  son  at  least  ten  thousand  dollars;  instead  of 
which  the  mother  was  left  an  impoverished  widow, 
while  the  son,  with  youth  and  health  gone,  had 
to  begin  life  over  again. 

When  men  are  maimed  for  life  in  a  railroad 
accident  the  owners  of  the  road  are  obliged  to 
pay  a  good  round  sum  in  compensation.  The 
employer  is  liable  for  damages  when  an  employee 
is  injured  by  defective  machinery;  but  to  the 
victims  of  our  penal  machinery  no  compensation 
is  made  by  the  state,  at  whose  hands  the  outrage 
was  committed.  It  is  true  that  the  injured  party 
is  at  liberty  to  bring  suit  against  the  individual 
who  charged  him  with  the  crime,  but  as  the 
burned  child  dreads  the  fire  so  the  innocent  man 
convicted  of  a  crime  dreads  the  courts. 

But  we  are  waking  up  to  a  sense  of  this  most 
cruel  robbery;  the  robbery  of  a  man's  liberty, 
his  earnings,  his  reputation,  and  too  often  his 
health;  and  we  are  coming  to  see  that  compensa- 
tion from  the  state,  on  receiving  convincing  evi- 
dence of  the  man's  innocence,  is  only  the  man's 
just  due — is  even  far  less  than  fair  play. 

287 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

To  Wisconsin  belongs  the  honor  of  taking  the 
lead  in  this  most  important  reform,  since  in  1913 
Wisconsin  passed  a  law  insuring  compensation 
in  money  from  the  State  in  every  case  where 
proof  could  be  furnished  that  one  was  not  guilty 
of  the  crime  for  which  he  had  suffered  imprison- 
ment. A  more  just  and  righteous  law  was  never 
passed.  Money  alone  can  never  compensate  for 
unjust  imprisonment,  but  the  only  atonement  pos- 
sible is  financial  compensation  and  public  vindica- 
tion. 

The  measures  so  far  considered  are  all  remedial; 
but  while  we  have  recently  made  rapid  progress 
in  measures  applied  after  men  have  been  sent  to 
prison  we  have  thought  little  of  preventive  meas- 
ures. And  just  here  we  face  again  the  spirit  of  the 
times. 

All  along  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury men  of  science — chemists,  biologists,  physi- 
cians— were  studying  preventive  measures  to  stem 
the  tide  of  evil  in  the  form  of  disease.  Previously 
medical  science  had  been  directed  chiefly  to  bat- 
tling with  diseased  conditions  already  developed; 
but  under  the  leadership  of  Pasteur  and  Lord 
Lister  the  medical  world  was  aroused  to  the  fact 
that  it  was  possible  to  avert  the  terrible  ravages 

288 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

of  many  of  the  diseases  which  fifty  years  earlier 
had  been  accepted  as  visitations  from  Providence. 
Henceforth  "preventive  measures"  became  watch- 
words among  men  devoting  themselves  to  the 
physical  welfare  of  the  race;  and  "preventive 
measures"  have  also  a  most  important  relation 
to  the  moral  welfare  of  the  community,  and  the 
way  is  opening  for  their  application. 

For  instance,  the  imprisonment  of  innocent 
men  would  be  largely  prevented  by  the  abolition 
of  all  fees  in  connection  with  arrests  and  convic- 
tions. The  system  of  rewards  for  arrests  and  con- 
victions is  absolutely  demoralizing  to  justice;  for 
as  long  as  the  whole  battalion  of  men  employed  to 
protect  the  public  have  a  direct  financial  interest 
in  the  increase  of  crime  it  is  unreasonable  to  ex- 
pect decrease  in  the  number  of  men  confined  in  our 
jails  and  prisons.  An  official  inspector  of  jails 
and  police  stations  in  my  own  State  reports  that 
she  has  frequently  had  police  officers  admit  to  her 
that  it  was  a  great  temptation  to  arrest  some  poor 
devil,  since  the  city  paid  fees  for  such  arrests; 
and  she  further  states  that  in  Chicago  the  entire 
basis  of  the  city  penal  administration  is  fees,  and 
she  adds:  "What  better  inducement  could  be 
offered  to  officials  to  penalize  some  unoffending 

289 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

stranger  looking  for  work?"  All  the  evils  arising 
from  this  abominable  and  indefensible  arrange- 
ment would  be  in  a  measure  decreased  by  the 
simple  process  of  abolishing  fees  and  increasing 
salaries.  This  has  already  been  done  in  some 
localities;  and  doubtless  the  coming  generation 
will  wonder  how  the  feeing  system  could  ever 
have  been  adopted  or  tolerated. 

The  most  impregnable  stronghold  of  inhumanity 
in  dealing  with  persons  suspected  of  connection 
with  crime  is  our  police  stations;  especially  is 
this  so  in  our  larger  cities.  The  police  station  and 
the  feeing  system  are  the  parent  of  one  most 
barbarous  custom;  an  evil  most  elusive,  its  roots, 
like  the  roots  of  the  vicious  bindweed,  so  far 
underground,  with  such  complicated  entangle- 
ment of  relationships,  as  to  be  almost  ineradicable, 
involving  in  some  instances  State  attorneys  of 
good  standing,  detectives,  policemen,  sheriffs— 
in  fact,  more  or  less  involving  the  whole  force  of 
agents  supposed  to  be  protectors  of  the  public. 
This  abuse  is  called  the  third  degree,  or  the  sweat- 
box. 

A  man  is  arrested,  accused  of  a  crime  or  of 
knowledge  of  a  crime.  Before  he  is  given  any 
trial  in  any  court  unscrupulous  means  are  resorted 

290 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

to  in  order  to  extort  an  admission  of  crime  or 
complicity  in  crime — or  even  of  knowledge  con- 
nected with  a  crime. 

A  physician  who  knew  all  the  circumstances 
recently  called  my  attention  to  the  case  of  a 
woman  supposed  to  have  some  knowledge  that 
might  implicate  her  husband  in  a  burglary.  The 
woman  was  an  invalid.  After  being  kept  for 
forty-eight  hours  without  food  or  water,  forced 
to  walk  when  she  seemed  likely  to  fall  asleep 
from  exhaustion,  she  was  told  that  her  husband 
had  deserted  her,  taken  her  child,  and  gone  off 
with  another  woman.  She  was  by  this  time  in 
a  frantic  condition,  and  when  told  that  her  tor- 
ture would  cease  with  her  admission  of  her  hus- 
band's guilt,  too  distracted  to  question  his  deser- 
tion of  her,  she  gave  false  evidence  against  her 
husband  and  was  set  free. 

The  husband  was  in  no  way  implicated  in  the 
crime,  but  the  consequences  of  the  affair  were 
disastrous  to  his  business.  He  had  never  thought 
of  deserting  his  wife,  but  it  was  part  of  the  scheme 
of  the  third  degree  to  keep  the  husband  and  the 
lawyer  whom  he  had  engaged  from  seeing  the 
woman  until  the  end  sought  was  accomplished. 

A  young  lawyer  told  me  of  a  most  revolting 
291 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

third  degree  scene  witnessed  by  him,  and  he  told 
me  the  story  as  an  instance  of  the  cleverness 
which  devised  a  terrible  nervous  shock  in  order 
to  throw  a  supposedly  guilty  woman  off  her 
guard;  the  shock  was  enough  to  have  driven  the 
woman  raving  insane. 

Whenever  I  have  spoken  of  this  subject  to 
those  familiar  with  sweat-box  methods,  the  evil 
has  been  frankly  admitted  and  unhesitatingly 
condemned,  but  I  hear  always  the  same  thing: 
"Yes,  we  know  that  it  is  a  terrible  abuse,  but 
we  have  not  been  able  to  prevent  it."  It  is 
simply  a  public  crime  that  such  a  system  should 
be  tolerated  for  one  day.  Mr.  W.  D.  Ho  wells 
has  well  said:  "The  law  and  order  which  defy 
justice  and  humanity  are  merely  organized  an- 
archy." 

I  have  not  hesitated  to  brand  my  own  State 
with  this  third-degree  evil,  but  I  understand  it  is 
practised  also  in  other  States  on  the  pretext  that 
the  end  justifies  the  means — but  what  if  the  end 
is  the  life  imprisonment  of  an  innocent  man?  I 
have  in  mind  a  young  man  who  was  subjected  to 
four  days  of  sweat-box  torture.  At  the  end  of 
that  time,  when  even  death  by  hanging  offered 
at  least  a  respite  from  his  tormentors,  he  signed 

292 


THE  MAN  BEHIND   THE  BARS 

a  statement,  drawn  up  by  those  tormentors,  to 
the  effect  that  he  was  guilty  of  murder.  The 
boy  was  only  eighteen,  but  was  sent  to  prison  for 
life,  though  it  now  seems  likely  that  he  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  crime.  However,  it  is  difficult 
to  secure  pardon  for  a  man  sent  to  prison  on  his 
own  confession;  and  there  is  just  where  the  in- 
justice is  blackest:  it  cuts  from  under  a  man's 
feet  all  substance  in  a  subsequent  declaration  of 
innocence,  for  it  stands  on  the  records  of  the  case 
that  he  confessed  his  guilt. 

There  are  of  course  many  cases  where  the 
third  degree  is  not  resorted  to;  indeed,  its  use 
seems  to  be  mainly  confined  to  the  cities  where 
police  stations  are  a  ring  within  a  ring.  In 
smaller  towns  after  the  arrest  is  made  the  case 
usually  comes  to  trial  with  no  previous  unauthor- 
ized attempt  to  induce  the  prisoner  to  convict 
himself,  and,  if  the  accused  is  a  man  of  means  who 
can  employ  an  able  lawyer,  the  trial  becomes  a 
game  between  the  opposing  lawyers,  and  both 
sides  have  at  least  a  fair  chance.  Not  so  when  the 
court  appoints  a  lawyer  for  the  poor  man.  The 
prosecution  then  plays  the  game  with  loaded  dice; 
for  it  is  the  custom  for  the  court  to  appoint  the 
least  experienced  fledgling  in  the  profession. 

293 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Los  Angeles,  Cal.,  has  recently  introduced  an 
admirable  measure  to  secure  a  nearer  approach 
to  justice  in  the  courts  for  the  poor  man,  by  the 
appointment  of  a  regular  district  attorney  for  the 
defence  of  accused  persons  who  are  unable  to  pay 
for  a  competent  lawyer.  This  appointment  of  a 
public  defender  has  been  made  solely  with  the 
aim  of  securing  justice  for  the  poor  and  for  the 
ignorant  foreigner;  it  is  a  most  encouraging  step 
in  the  right  direction,  and  seems  a  hopeful  means 
of  exterminating  the  sweat-box  system. 

We  cannot  hope  to  accomplish  much  with  pre- 
ventive measures  until  we  frankly  face  the  causes 
of  the  evils  we  would  reduce.  That  the  saloon  is 
a  prolific  source  of  crime  the  records  of  all  the 
courts  unquestionably  prove;  it  is  also  one  of 
the  causes  of  the  poverty  which  in  its  turn  be- 
comes a  cause  of  crime.  The  saloon  is  wholly 
in  the  hands  of  the  public,  to  be  modified,  con- 
trolled, or  abolished  according  to  the  dictates  of 
the  majority.  This  is  not  so  easy  as  it  sounds, 
but  when  we  realize  that  while  the  saloon-keeper 
reaps  all  the  profits  of  his  business  it  is  the  tax- 
payer who  is  obliged  to  pay  the  expense  of  the 
crimes  resulting  from  that  business,  the  question 
becomes  one  of  public  economy  as  well  as  of  public 

294 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

morals.  The  force  which  makes  for  social  evolu- 
tion is  bound  to  win  in  the  long  run,  and  the 
gradual  elimination  of  the  saloon  as  it  stands 
to-day  is  inevitable;  and  certain  it  is  that  with 
the  control  of  the  saloon  evil  there  will  be  a 
marked  reduction  in  the  number  of  crimes  com- 
mitted. 

The  criminal  ranks  receive  annual  reinforce- 
ment from  a  number  of  sources  now  tolerated  by 
a  long-suffering  public.  We  still  have  our  army 
of  tramps,  caused  in  part  by  defective  manage- 
ment of  county  jails  where  men  are  supported  in 
enforced  idleness  at  the  expense  of  the  working 
community;  the  result  also  of  unstable  industrial 
conditions  and  far  greater  competition,  since 
women,  by  cutting  wages,  have  so  largely  taken 
possession  of  industrial  fields.  Constitutional 
restlessness  and  aversion  to  steady  work  also 
cause  men  and  boys  to  try  the  easy  if  precarious 
tramp  life;  and  in  hard-luck  times  the  slip  into 
crime  comes  almost  as  a  matter  of  course. 

The  trail  of  the  banishment  of  the  tramp  evil 
has  already  been  blazed  through  Belgium,  Hol- 
land, and  Switzerland  by  the  development  of  the 
farm  colony  to  which  every  tramp  is  rigidly  sent. 
There  he  is  subjected  to  an  industrial  training 

295 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

involving  recognition  of  individual  ability,  and 
development  along  the  lines  to  which  he  is  best 
adapted.  These  farm  colonies  are  schools  of 
industry  where  every  man  is  obliged  to  work  for 
his  living  while  there,  and  is  fitted  to  earn  a  living 
when  he  leaves.  The  results  of  these  measures 
have  been  altogether  satisfactory,  and  we  have 
but  to  adapt  their  methods  to  conditions  in  this 
country  to  accomplish  similar  results.  The  elimi- 
nation of  the  tramp  is  a  necessary  safeguard 
to  the  community;  and  to  the  tramp  himself  it  is 
rescue  from  cumulative  degradation. 

Mr.  Fielding-Hall,  an  Englishman,  at  one  time 
magistrate,  later  warden  of  the  largest  prison  in 
the  world,  and  the  most  radical  of  humanitarians, 
after  years  of  exhaustive  study  of  the  causes  of 
crime,  declares  that  society  alone  is  responsible. 
He  adds:  "It  is  no  use  saying  that  criminals  are 
born,  not  made;  they  are  made  and  they  are 
made  by  society."  And  it  is  true  that  in  every 
community  where  human  beings  are  herded  in 
foul  tenements,  herded  in  crowded,  unsanitary 
factories,  or  live  their  days  underground  in  mines, 
we  shall  continue  to  breed  a  class  mentally,  moral- 
ly, and  physically  defective,  some  of  whom  will 
inevitably  be  subject  to  criminal  outbreaks. 

296 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

Poverty  causes  ill  health,  and  malnutrition  saps 
the  power  of  self-control. 

Medical  science  is  even  now  telling  us  that 
there  is  probably  no  form  of  criminal  tendency 
unrelated  to  physiological  defects:  brain-cells 
poisoned  by  disease;  brain-cells  defective  either 
through  heredity — as  in  the  offspring  of  the 
feeble-minded — or  enfeebled  through  malnutrition 
in  childhood,  the  offspring  of  want;  brains  slightly 
out  of  balance;  and,  more  rarely,  the  criminal 
impulse  developed  as  the  result  of  direct  injury 
to  the  brain  caused  by  a  blow.  Crimes  are  also 
committed  under  temporary  abnormal  conditions 
such  as  "dual  personality"  or  double  conscious- 
ness. In  this  diagnosis  of  crime  we  find  ourselves 
next  door  to  a  hospital;  and  this  class  of  criminals 
does  closely  parallel  what  alienists  call  "bor- 
derland cases,"  while  the  unscientific  penologist 
has  carelessly  classified  them  as  "degenerates." 
Physicians  tell  us  that  when  Lombroso  was  study- 
ing "types,"  if  he  had  invaded  the  charity  hos- 
pitals of  large  cities  he  would  have  found  the 
same  stunted,  undernourished,  physically  defect- 
ive specimens  of  humanity  that  he  stigmatized 
as  the  "criminal  type." 

Of  two  prisoners  whom  I  knew  well  one  was 
297 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

subject  to  slight  attacks  of  catalepsy,  the  other  to 
epilepsy;  each  of  these  men  had  committed  a 
murder,  and  each  said  to  me  the  same  thing: 
"I  had  no  reason  to  kill  that  person  and  /  don't 
know  why  I  did  it."  Both  these  men  were  re- 
ligious and  extremely  conscientious;  but  when  the 
"spells"  came  on  them  they  were  irresponsible 
as  a  leaf  blown  by  the  wind;  and  while  passion- 
ately regretting  their  deeds  of  horror  they  seemed 
always  to  regard  the  act  as  something  outside 
themselves. 

None  of  us  yet  understand  the  interaction  be- 
tween the  mental  and  physical  in  the  nature  of 
man,  but  the  fact  of  this  interdependence  is 
clear;  and  while  progressive  prison  wardens  are 
sifting  the  human  material  thrown  into  their 
hands,  giving  comparative  freedom  to  "honor 
men,"  and  industrial  training  and  elementary 
education  to  those  within  the  walls,  they  do  not 
ignore  the  fact  that  there  is  a  residue — they  are 
in  all  our  prisons — a  residue  of  men  who  cannot 
stand  alone  morally;  handicapped  by  causes  for 
which  they  may  not  be  responsible  they  cannot 
hope  to  be  "honor  men"  for  they  are  moral  in- 
valids— often  mental  invalids  as  well.  That  they 
should  be  kept  under  restraint  goes  without  say- 

298 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

ing.  They  need  the  control  of  a  firm  yet  flexible 
hand,  and  they  should  be  under  direct  medical 
supervision;  for  back  of  their  crimes  may  be 
causes  other  than  bad  blood.* 

Improved  factory  laws,  better  housing  of  the 
poor,  the  enforcement  of  regulations  for  public 
hygiene,  the  application  of  some  of  the  saner 
theories  of  eugenics,  the  work  of  district  nurses, 
all  these  are  on  the  way  to  reduce  the  number  of 
diseased  or  abnormal  individuals  who  fall  so 
readily  into  crime.  Already  we  have  several 
recorded  instances  when  a  blow  on  the  head  had 
caused  uncontrollable  criminal  impulses,  where 
skilful  brain  surgery  removed  the  pressure,  and 
with  the  restoration  of  the  normal  brain  the 
nature  of  the  individual  recovered  its  moral 
balance.  Every  large  city  should  have  its  psycho- 
pathic detention  hospital  in  connection  with  its 
courts,  to  be  resorted  to  in  all  cases  where  there 

*  The  relation  of  the  criminal  to  the  defective  and  the  insane  had 
been  clear  to  me  for  many  years,  and  I  could  not  understand  the 
disregard  of  the  courts  to  any  fact  so  obvious  to  the  student  of  the 
three  classes.  But  most  valuable  work  in  this  line  is  now  being  done 
by  Dr.  J.  M.  Hickson,  of  the  psychological  laboratory  operated  in 
connection  with  the  Chicago  municipal  court,  and  the  results  of  his 
tests  of  the  mentality  of  young  criminals  are  now  commanding  at- 
tention. Dr.  Hickson  unhesitatingly  declares  the  need  of  reform 
in  our  laws  and  our  courts.  The  existence  of  this  psychopathic 
laboratory  is  largely  due  to  Judge  Olson,  of  Chicago,  a  man  of  most 
advanced  views  on  penology,  and  a  practical  humanitarian. 

299 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

is  doubt  of  the  responsibility  of  any  person  ac- 
cused of  crime,  and  every  large  penitentiary 
should  have  its  psychopathic  department  for  men 
sent  to  prison  from  smaller  towns. 

But  when  all  is  said  and  done,  when  the  main 
sources  of  crime  are  recognized  and  controlled, 
when  sound  sociology  unites  with  Christianity  as 
the  basis  of  management  in  every  prison,  when 
the  "criminal  type"  of  Lombroso  has  been  finally 
consigned  to  the  limbo  of  exploded  theories,  crime 
will  still  be  with  us,  simply  because  human  nature 
is  human  nature;  and  whatever  else  human  nature 
may  be  it  is  a  violent  explosive,  whether  we  agree 
with  Saint  Paul  as  to  "the  old  Adam"  or  believe 
with  the  evolutionist  that  we  are  slowly  emerging 
from  the  brute  and  that  the  beast  of  prey  still 
sleeps  within  us — not  sleeping  but  rampant  in 
men  and  women  allied  in  white-slave  traffic  and 
in  those  responsible  for  the  wholesale  slaughter  of 
mankind  and  the  destruction  of  property  caused 
by  war.  Nothing  short  of  the  complete  regen- 
eration of  human  nature  can  banish  crime;  and 
after  we  who  call  ourselves  "society"  have  done 
our  best  human  nature  will  continue  to  break  out 
in  lawless  acts.  As  long  as  we  have  poverty  in 
our  midst  desperate  want  will  revolt  in  desperate 
deeds,  and  poverty  we  shall  have  until  the  race 

300 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

has  reached  a  higher  average  of  thrift  and  efficien- 
cy, and  industrial  conditions  are  developed  on  a 
basis  of  fairness  to  all;  and  where  there  is  a  weak 
link  in  the  moral  nature  of  a  man  undue  pressure 
of  temptation,  brought  to  bear  on  that  link,  will 
cause  it  to  break,  even  while  in  his  heart  the  man 
may  be  hungering  and  thirsting  for  righteousness. 
When  the  science  of  eugenics  has  given  its  help- 
ing hand  it  will  still  be  baffled  by  the  appearance 
of  the  proverbial  black  sheep  in  folds  where 
heredity  and  environment  logically  should  have 
produced  snowy  fleece;  and  who  among  us  dare 
assert  that  no  infusion  of  bad  blood  discolors  his 
own  tangled  ancestry? 

All  the  evils  of  poverty,  vice,  and  crime  are 
but  expressions  of  imperfection  of  the  human  na- 
ture common  to  us  all.  The  warp  of  the  fabric 
is  the  same,  various  as  are  the  colors  and  tones, 
and  the  strength  of  the  threads  of  which  the  in- 
dividual lives  are  woven.  Whether  or  not  we 
realize  it,  all  our  efforts  toward  social  reform  in- 
dicate a  growing  consciousness  of  the  oneness  of 
humanity. 

With  all  our  imperfections,  is  not  human  nature 
sound  at  heart  ?  Do  we  not  love  that  which  seems 
to  us  good  and  hate  the  apparent  evil?  We  do 
not  realize  the  insidious  working  of  evil  in  our- 

301 


THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  BARS 

selves;  but  when  it  is  revealed  to  us  objectively, 
when  it  is  thrown  into  relief  by  an  outbreak  of 
evil  deeds  in  others,  our  healthy  instinctive  im- 
pulse is  to  crush  it.  Surely  back  of  the  religious 
and  the  legal  persecutions  has  been  the  desire  to 
exterminate  apparent  evil;  that  desire  is  still  with 
us  but  we  are  learning  better  methods  of  handling 
it  than  to  unleash  the  bloodhounds  of  cruelty. 
We  are  beginning  to  understand  that  evil  can  be 
conquered  only  by  good. 

As  the  words  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity 
first  led  me  into  my  prison  experience,  after  all 
these  years  of  study  of  the  subject  I  find  myself 
coming  out  at  the  same  door  wherein  I  went,  and 
believing  that  every  theory  of  social  reform,  in- 
cluding all  the  'ologies,  resolves  itself  in  the  last 
analysis  to  a  wise  conformity  to  the  Golden  Rule. 
On  the  fly-leaf  of  a  little  note-book  which  I  carried 
when  visiting  the  penitentiary  were  pencilled  these 
words:  "The  Christian  religion  is  the  ministry  of 
love  and  common  sense,"  and  I  have  lived  to  see 
the  teaching  of  Christianity  forming  the  basis  of 
prison  reform,  and  science  clasping  the  hand  of 
religion  in  this  relation  of  man  to  man.  Hence- 
forth I  shall  believe  that  nothing  is  too  good  to  be 
true,  not  even  the  coming  of  universal  peace. 

302 


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_  i  Jlil 


